A Misplaced Reality
by PlainStoryTeller
Summary: After two, long, painful, but unforgettable years, Sachi had finally escaped the death game known as Sword Art Online and returned to her regular life. However, even though one adventure is finished doesn't mean that another won't start. What adventures lie for Sachi and the gang, both in the real world, and in the virtual world? [ON HIATUS]
1. Prologue

Sword Art Online Fanfiction: Misplaced Reality

Prologue – Ever so Real, yet, a Dream

"_I can hear it…. The wind. It feels….so gentle." I opened my eyes to see where I was. It was a green pasture, empty and rustling with the wind. The grass gave the ground such a soft texture, that I just wanted to lie in it all day. But it wasn't just the grass that was beautiful, I looked up at the vast sky above me. The sun was at high noon as the white soundless clouds migrated their way through the blue sea of wonder. In the distance, there was a structure, a silvery white structure. It rose so high that I couldn't even see the top, like a gateway to the world above this one. There were numerous terraces spiraling upward entangling themselves into one large "rope", and it got bigger as it went to the top. For some reason, it kind of looked like a tree. Yes, a giant silver tree. The trees of leaves that were barely visible from the clouds that covered them gave it away. Where is this? I wondered. I thought for a moment, was this that world that Kayaba Akihito dreamt of? Who knows? It all feels so real, but at the same time, I don't feel like I belong. _

**December 8, 2024 **

"Wha…?" She mumbled as she opened her eyes to a dark room, only illuminated by a single nightlight. "A dream…." Rubbing her eyes, she muttered and looked around; the room looked familiar, yet, distant. "What time is it …" Squeezing her middle finger and thumb together, she swiped the air in front of her, there was nothing, no sound, no menu. "Oh?" She expected something to happen before she looked up. Her clock read **3:51 P.M.**

"That's right…." She realized, she was back in the real world. It's been a little bit over a month since Sachi had logged off from the death game of Sword Art Online, and adjusting back to normal life was quite difficult.

Sighing as she flopped back onto her bed, Sachi muttered, "That tree…." Before she closed her eyes again,

"It reminds me of that world…."

**A/N**: Hey guys! I'm back, and I'm here to present you guys the start of the second arc to my story. The semester is finally over, and I'll have plenty of time dedicated to writing again, so I hope to get to do so within due time.

This is also a direct sequel to my first story, A Second Chance. If you haven't read it, be sure to do so if you really want to advance in this one.

Anyway, the end of one adventure sparks the flames of a new one. So what adventures will lie before Sachi and the gang?


	2. Chapter 1 - Unsaid Goodbyes

Chapter 1 – Unsaid Goodbyes

**December 9, 2024 – Shibaguchi Residence**

It was quite the cold morning today. Sachi learned that the hard way as she stepped foot on the stingingly cold tile of her bathroom. "Cold…cold…." She muttered to herself turning on the faucet. She ran her hand under the running water to make sure it was warm, and splashed her face, drying off with a towel. After, she stared at herself in the mirror; she had remembered when she first woke up, her hair was uncomfortably long and her face was morbidly thin. Her dark blue hair hung messily as she tried to comb it down. No luck. After licking her hand and trying to pat it down, it still stood up; so she decided to take a shower. Sachi normally didn't take a shower in the morning because it didn't feel right, but since she was going out today, she figured that she should get it out of the way first.

Sighing with relief as she stepped out of the bathroom, Sachi retired back to her room as she flopped on her bed again. Her still damp hair dried itself partially on her bed sheets, but that was the last thing on her mind at the moment. "_I wonder how everyone else is doing…"_ Sachi thought to herself. It's already been a month since the death game Sword Art Online was cleared, and from that moment on, the members of the New Black Cats of the Full Moon had disbanded; it was inevitable. Everyone knew it was going to happen sooner or later all guilds knew that. Unfortunately, not everyone that people meet online necessarily live next to each other. Worst case scenario was that some of the guild members lived as far as Hokkaido, in Northern Japan, or even as south as Okinawa. Sachi herself lived in Fujimino City, in the Saitama Prefecture, a thirty five minute train ride to Tokyo.

Amidst her thinking, Sachi's stomach growled.

**ooo**

The bitter smell of coffee filled Sachi's nostrils as she sat down next to Tomiichi Chikamatsu, her stepfather.

"Good morning Sachiyo" Eri Shibaguchi, her mother, greeted her.

"Morning mom, morning Tomiichi-san" Sachi replied as she muttered under hear breath _itadakimasu_, a common Japanese phrase to give thanks before eating, and began to eat breakfast. It was a traditional Japanese breakfast, as compared to the more Westernized ones such as cereal, beagles, and oatmeal, and it consisted of steamed rise, some miso, and grilled fish with soy sauce.

"_Dad…"_ Tomiichi mouthed for Sachi to see as he smiled jokingly at her putting his touch tablet down and beginning eating also. Her mother got remarried during the two years that Sachi was in SAO. Even with such a big change, Sachi adapted very easily. Partially because she's never really had a father relationship. Her father left her when she was very young, so her mother was the only one there for her most of her life.

It wasn't that she didn't like Tomiichi, Sachi loved him, and she knew that he really cared. She just wasn't ready to call him dad yet. So for now, she insisted on calling Tomiichi, Tomiichi.

"Ah, Sachi, don't forget. We have to go to up to Kawagoe City today." Tomiichi said as he laid his empty bowl down.

Sachi nodded in reply to signify that she didn't forget. She had a hospital appointment today for a checkup at Mitsui Hospital. Just because she was out of the hospital doesn't mean that she's one hundred percent back to normal. It was a simple checkup to see if her muscles are still holding up okay. Even looking upon herself right now, she was still quite thin. Her hands weren't as bony as before, but still, it was unnaturally thin. Her legs also were so thin, it was quite scary.

"I'll go warm up the car" Tomiichi said as he picked his bowl and empty dishes up, deposited them in the sink, and kissing Eri on the cheek. "Hurry and finish breakfast, we'll go once you're done"

"Okay" Sachi said in reply as she too finished her breakfast.

**ooo**

Most people would notice that car rides are usually silent. People don't usually talk unless they're close friends, or maybe the only reason is that they want to play the radio or maybe it's a safety hazard because it distracts the driver. But the radio was off in Tomiichi's car and both he and Sachi were quiet.

Sachi was glaring out the window watching the urban streets pass her by. There were small beams of sunlight beading through the clouds. At that moment, Sachi began to wonder. "_What are Keita and the others doing right now up there?" _Her mind bounced around in silent pain as she hung her head a bit. The loss of her closest friends still pained her.

"You seem troubled" Tomiichi inquired as he glanced at her with a sincere concern.

"No, it's nothing. It's just… I miss them" She replied, "Keita… and the rest…"

Tomiichi smiled gently, and began to speak, "I know how it feels." He knew about everything that happened, and he truly felt sorry for her.

Sachi looked towards him.

"I've lost close friends of mine too. Even today, I still miss them. But you know, sometimes we have wipe our tears and walk forward." He said in a sort of sympathetic tone. "If you need anyone, always remember that you have family and friends to turn to okay?"

Nodding with a smile, Sachi replied, "Thanks Tomiichi-san" Those last words reminded her of a close friend of hers in SAO. "_I wonder if you're holding up okay Norie" _

**Mitsui Hospital**

The checkup wasn't anything special. It was simply a few muscle exercises, some stretches, and a few jogging sessions to make sure that her respiratory system was in good order and that she didn't have pneumonia. The entire session took about an hour.

Following the doctor down the hall, Tomiichi saw them from the waiting room and approached them, rather eager to hear the results.

"Well, how was it?" He asked Sachi.

"It was good" She replied bluntly.

"Ah, Chikamatsu-san. Your daughter is completely good condition. All her muscles are still in good condition, and show no signs of breaking down in the near future. The only thing I suggest is that she get a regular dose of exercise so that the muscles don't start breaking down again." The doctor began explaining further, but amidst her "paying attention" Sachi's eyes wandered the rooms of the hospital until they fixed themselves on a particular room. A room, in which sitting upright on the bed inside, was a boy, with starch black hair. He eyes were focused on the tablet in front of him, and he wore black pajamas; that was a color that was all too familiar to Sachi.

After a few moments, the boy looked to his side, and locked eyes with Sachi as he smiled gladly when he realized who he was looking at. "Sachi" The boy said.

Sachi smiled also. It was Kirito, the Black Swordsman, the hero of SAO. The one that liberated the remaining 6,000 players from the game of death.

**ooo**

The metalling clang of two cans echoed through the halls of the hospital as Kirito slid his hand through the vending machine and picked them up. It was canned orange juice.

"Here you go" He added handing Sachi a can before he himself sat down next to her.

"Thanks" Sachi replied opening it. After taking a gulp, she asked, "So how are you feeling?"

Apparently, Kirito was still residing at the hospital for post coma rehabilitation.

"Still a little sore" he replied rubbing the back of his head in his usual casual manner. "They said I would be out in a week or so though." Kirito originally was staying at a hospital in Tokyo, but was transferred to Mitsui Hospital to be closer to home.

"That's good" Sachi replied glaring at him. His face much thinner than hers in comparison, but yet, his eyes showed this sort of desire that made him look alive and well. "Have you heard from Asuna recently?"

He shook his head, "She hasn't woken up yet." From the look on his face, it seemed that it was very painful to say that to Sachi.

"Oh…" Sachi herself was almost as concerned as Kirito was about Asuna. She was almost completely sure that both he and Asuna made it out of SAO, Sachi saw for herself at that last moment.

"It's okay. I believe that she's still safe. She's a strong girl." Kirito added before sipping his drink, "Well? What about you? Are Keshiga and Norie doing well also?"

"I saw Keshiga two days ago. He's doing great" Sachi quoted, "But Norie, I haven't seen her since we logged out." It was quite true, she had met Keshiga at the corner of a convenience store while she was buying milk. As for Norie, she hadn't heard a word from her. She was worried, but at the same time, she had to trust in her best friend.

Kirito, or rather, Kazuto, simply chuckled, "I'm sure Norie's doing well. I heard about her predicament, and I only wish the best for her."

"I do too" Sachi replied as Tomiichi entered the front lobby.

"Alright, let's go home Sachiyo" He said.

"Sachiyo?" Kirito wondered aloud.

"It's my full name" Sachi winked as she stood up and waved. "Bye Kirito, it's good to see you again."

"Good to see you again too Sachi_yo_" Kirito emphasized the yo to tease her a bit as he waved back smiling.

"A friend of yours?" Tomiichi inquired as he pat Sachi's head.

"Mhm, from SAO" Sachi replied.

"Oh, any crush on him?" Her step-father teased as he giggled.

"_No_" Sachi puffed her cheeks as she thought about Keshiga for a moment, "But he's important to me"

**ooo**

"Huh…." Sachi sighed from her computer chair as she glared displeasingly at the screen. She was browsing through a gaming forum that she had been part of before the start of SAO, and it seems that her account was deleted due to inactivity. After ignoring it, she leaned back in her chair and glanced around her room.

It indeed felt rather lonesome during the day, but that won't be for much longer. Sachi will be going back to school next Monday. As an emergency, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications started renovations of an abandoned school building in the area for middle school and high schools students who were trapped in SAO.

From there, the students would make up for the years of school they missed before college, and then take the entrance exam into college. Sachi, Keita and the rest were nearing the end of their first years in high school, so Sachi had two years to make up.

"Time sure flies huh…" She continued to talk to herself reaching towards the ceiling of her room in an attempt to stretch. Her 19th birthday was approaching rather fast, January 10th to be exact. After her little stretch, he turned her head sideways, coincidently staring at her NerveGear. It was rather scratched and worn out. It brought her so much pain, yet so much happiness, that the thought of throwing it out hadn't even come to mind.

From there, she suddenly remembered something that happened the day she woke up.

_I was sitting quietly in my bed examining my bony self. It was shocking to see what damage simply sleeping caused to your body. I guess that's what they mean by too much of a good can be bad for you._

"_I wonder if everyone else got out safely" I said to myself before there was a gentle knock on the door. "Come in" I was expecting it to be my mom, but I was mistaken. _

_It was a girl, rather small in stature. She glared at me with these cold mind piercing golden eyes. It was quite frightening, yet, there no aura of malice about her, I could feel it. What was even stranger was her appearance. She was wearing a pale navy blue postal worker's outfit with a flowing cape, and cap. But the strangest part about her of all, was the large staff that she carried with her. _

"_Well well! I guess Sleeping Beauty is finally awake no?" A rather boisterous voice sounded. It didn't come from the girl, I knew that for sure._

"_Umm, what… what was that?" I asked looking around for the source of the other voice._

"_I'm not a that! I'm Kanaka!" As the voice sounded again, the top portion of the staff glowed. _

"_A talking staff? Am I still in the game?" I couldn't believe this, had they really managed to convert the personality of an AI into a device?_

"_This is as real as reality gets" The girl replied flicked her staff a bit. "Keep your voice down Kanaka. I don't want you disturbing the other patients" She added letting go of Kanaka and reaching into her bag. _

"_Wai-" I was about to say since she let her staff go so willingly to let it fall. What happened next amazed me, the staff floated! Not only did they created a talking AI in real life, as compared to the virtual world with Ellen, but they also had mastered hovering technology? How much have I missed these past two years?_

"_Kanaka isn't what you consider an AI. More so of… the supernatural" The girl added._

"_Yup! And someday, I'll become a human!" Kanaka replied proudly._

"_Quiet Kanaka, you've been chasing that dream for 16 years now" The girl said as she pulled out a letter from her bag and held it up towards me. "What is this?" I wasn't expecting any letters, especially since I was sleep up until now. _

"_A shigofumi" The girl replied in an emotionless tone. _

"_Shigofumi?" I repeated still rather puzzled._

"_A letter from the dead. From those who have passed on from this world to the next"_

"_The…dead?" I bit my lip hard when she said that. It seemed to me like a joke, a very insensitive one by that manner. Then again, I don't really that people would do something like this, so something in head said that this wasn't a joke. "From who?" I swallowed. _

"_Haruo Watanbe" The girl replied. "The receiver, Sachiyo Shibaguchi"_

_I gagged, as I stared at the letter. Then I realized something, it was the same envelope as the other letters that I found when I first woke up. I had thought that they were for someone else, and gotten mixed up, so I set them aside. I hastily turned my head and stared at the other three letters, and back at the girl. If this letter was from Keita, then the other three must be from my other friends who had passed away. _

_My mind was rather numb, with a swirl of emotions that primarily ranged on sadness. But I was also anxious, and that was what drove my hand forward to grab it. Raising my frail trembling arm up, and taking the letter with my bony fingers, it took me a few moments to open it. Delicately, and slowly, I opened the envelope, and slid the letter out, reading what the dead had to say. _

_Dear Sachi,_

_ I wanted to wait a little longer, but sadly, they told me to write one. They said I could tell them when to deliver it, so I figured that it was okay. If you're reading this, then I assume that you've already logged out of SAO. First, I just wanted to say that I'm so sorry Sachi. I'm sorry for leaving you in the real world, alone, by yourself. I was pretty selfish of me to kill myself, just so I could join the others. I feel so guilty about it. If I had known, that even one member, just one, was still alive, I wouldn't have jumped. I was overjoyed when I learned that you were still alive, since you weren't there where we were. But I guess the common denominator was that I didn't know. Well, it doesn't matter now, but I really regret it. It's just that, nothing pains a guild master more, than losing his members. It's a terrible feeling, honestly. The friends you've cared about suddenly all gone? I couldn't take it. _

_If you ever make a guild one day Sachi, please don't make the same mistake I did. Don't take life for granted, never take the easy way out. I was a coward, and I see that now, but it's too late. You Sachi, even since you always felt so scared, I always believed that you were very brave at heart. Even braver than me, or Ducker, or everyone else. And that's what I've always liked about you. Since I won't be seeing you again for a long time, I guess I'll come clean now. Sachi, I've had crush on you for a long time, and, I wish I could've told you before. Though, I think it would've caused more pain to you if I did, so I decided to wait until we got out of the game to tell you. But you know how that turned out. _

_Anyway, I wish you all the happiness in the world. Don't mourn over our deaths, please don't. Keep your head high, and we'll be right there next to you. Live life well, we'll be here waiting for you and watching over you._

_Sincerely, Keita_

_Thank you Sachi, goodbye for now. I must go onward._

_P.S. I forgot something. There are some things that I want you to have. There's a box in the club room, labeled "bako" that has a few items in it. It's nothing really special, but if I didn't give it to anyone, it would just sit there and gather dust. And after, maybe a couple more years, the school would just throw it away, and that would be a waste. _

_I was shaking, but even more so, I was crying. These tears, they were truly real. "Keita…." I muttered under my croaking voice. I was so filled with emotion that I just couldn't stop; the tears kept flowing. The dry tear ducts where like a dam that finally broke open, letting a stream of water flow into a desert wasteland, crying out for relief. "Thank you…..thank you so much…." I said, to both Keita, and the girl that had delivered me this message. _

"_My job is simply to deliver" The girl replied as she turned towards the door._

"_Wait" I pleaded as I tried to dry up my tears. My voice cracked a bit as I managed to ask, "What's your- name?"_

"_Fumika. Fumika Mikawa" The girl replied._

"_Don't forget me! Kanaka!" Fumika's staff beamed brightly as Fumika nodded at me with the ever so dull expression on her face. I nodded in return, still crying my eyes out, and she closed the door gently behind her. _

Sachi blinked her eyes; she had just phased out for a moment. She smiled warmly. "That's right. I forgot. Maybe I should go and get it now." She said getting up from her chair.

**ooo**

The pedals on Sachi's bike haven't gotten rusty one bit. She needed to remind herself for thanking her mom for keeping her bike in such good condition. In truth, Sachi did love to ride her bike. Even if she always rode careful and in a paranoid manner, she loved it.

"Ahh…." The wind blew against her face as she pedaled. Her face stung with the cold air, but it felt good. It was true what they said, you never forget how to ride a bike.

The streets of Fujimino City have changed so much in the past two years; Sachi could hardly recognize the landmarks that were so nostalgic from her childhood. One place in particular caught her attention as she rode through the streets of her hometown. Around the corner down the street of her house, about 7 blocks down, used to be a flower shop. She would always pass by there on her way to school, and often times come over for a cup of tea after school, so she knew the owner well.

It was an old lady. A widow; her husband died due to a work accident a few years back, so she was left alone while her children lived their own lives with their children, but she didn't mind. She was wise, and gentle. She understood that her children had their own troubles to tend to, and that not everyone had the time to take care of her. She boasted about one thing in particular about though, was that she was very healthy for her age, so there really was no need for someone else to take care of her.

It seemed that, after asking around, the poor widow died during Sachi's time in SAO due to a stroke. It was quite sad. A couple weeks after, they cleaned out the shop. The landowner felt rather sympathetic, and asked for permission from the lady's children to use her flowers at her funeral, and got it.

Around last August, the property was sold to a small video game distribution company. It was quite surprising to Sachi, especially since there really wasn't many game stores in Fujimino. To be frank, she had to take the train down to Tokyo to get a copy of SAO because none of the game stores in Fujimino sold it.

There was a poster that was on the front display glass that really caught her interest. It was a poster for the VRMMORPG called ALFheim Online; the so called successor to SAO. Upon further inspection, Sachi gasped as she saw what was on the poster. The silver tree that was in her dream.

"_This was what I saw in my dream…"_ She said to herself as she got off her bike, and clasped her hand on the bar of the door. She pulled, but it didn't open. "Closed?" It seems that the store was closed. "That's weird. It's a weekday, and it's only 4" It seemed unconventional, but Sachi figured she could come back tomorrow.

Sighing out of slight disappointment, Sachi got back on her bike, and continued to her old high school.

"Oh crap, crap crap crap. I forgot to unlock the door" A young woman muttered to herself opening the door to the game store from the inside. "Oh Norie you idiot, the boss is going to kill you now"

**Fujimino High School**

The old bike rack that was at the front by the side of the school was replaced by a newer one. It was quite strange, these things that Sachi considered daily were now very sentimental. She kind of missed that bike rack in a way.

Locking her bike, Sachi entered through the front. It was just after school, so there were numerous students walking around, chatting and fooling around. The faint sound of a whistle was heard as practice for sports droned on. It certainly felt as if Sachi was a strawberry in a field of blueberries. Everyone around her was wearing a traditional school uniform in contrast to herself, jeans, a blue sweater, white shirt, and a pair of low top ConverseTM shoes.

The halls felt very familiar to her, yet, the people around her were all strangers. Even the teachers were mostly different as they eyed her while passing her in the hall, and even when she saw someone that she recognized, she didn't really know them personally. Maybe she saw them around once in a while, but she had no direct relationship.

It wasn't uncommon to see people from outside the school wandering around, as long as they don't cause trouble, most faculty was okay with that. But from a former student's standpoint, it seemed quite uncommon for them to be walking these halls.

Turning the corner on the second floor, Sachi saw the sign at the top of the door. _Teacher's Lounge_ it said. Sachi wanted to see if Hiyamori-Sensei was here today. Tamura Hiyamori was the head of the science department at the school, and was also a part time math teacher along with being the advisor for the computer research club Sachi was a part of. She was devastated when she learned that SAO was a death trap, and she was even more so devastated when she learned that nearly all the members in her club died. She was so stricken with depression that she had to take a medical leave from work.

"Shitsureshimasu*" Sachi said as she slid the door open. There was only one teacher there, one which she didn't recognize.

"Can I help you?" He asked as he looked up from his stack of papers.

"Umm… Is Hiyamori-Sensei here?" Sachi asked rather timidly, but not as timidly as she would two years before.

"Oh, Hiyamori-Sensei should be in class 6C" The teacher replied.

"Okay, thank you" Sachi replied as she bowed slightly and slid the door closed. Class 6C was on the second floor of the main school building, and the old computer research club room was on the third floor.

Stepping quietly up the stairs, Sachi approached her way to class 6C, all the way down the hall..

"Shitsureshimasu" She said as she slid the door open. There was one person in the room, a woman, tall in stature in her early thirties. Her brown hair was tied up in a bun with some loose strand sticking out. Her thin framed glasses reflected themselves against the orange light of the setting sun. She had a slim figure, and her thin arms fluttered their way along the chalkboard.

"Ah, hello Sachi. What can I do for you?" Hiyamori asked as she momentarily took the chalk off the board. A few days after Sachi woke up, Hiyamori-sensei had paid her a visit. At the hospital, Hiyamori expressed her intense regret for convincing the club to purchase SAO.

"Hello sensei, I just wanted to know if the club room was open today." Sachi asked resting her hand on the door.

Her former teacher nodded. "It should be open. Just close the door when you leave"

"Okay then, thank you" Sachi replied bowing slightly.

"Anytime Sachi"

**ooo**

The club room of the computer research club hadn't changed one bit. There were a few things that were moved around, and a few new computers and such, but there were no drastic changes. There was one table, and about six computers; one for each of them including Hiyamori-sensei. After sliding her hand along the table where she used to sit, Sachi sighed as she sat down in her spot. It truly felt sentimental, but bittersweet at the same time.

Glaring around the room a bit, she fixed her eyes on the box that said "bako". There it was, the box that Keita had instructed in his final message to her. Standing up and pulling the box out of the shelf, the box was lighter than she thought. Inside the box, was a few items. There were a few coding manuals that they used. A flash drive with unknown data on it. Then again, the USB was quite a vintage piece of technology in these days. But, possibly, the item that made Sachi smile the most was a picture, complete with a frame. It was a group of photo of Sachi, Keita, Ducker, Sasamaru, and Tetsuo together.

Amidst her smiling, Sachi heard voices from outside the door, followed by the door opening. To her surprise, a group of four people were at the door. Two girls, two boys. They seemed to be chatting happily, and where as surprised as she was when they entered the room.

"Oh, sorry." Sachi apologized, "I was just picking up a few things." She added examining the students. She had to inquire, "Are you members of the computer research club?"

**A/N: Hello again guys. Sometime while I was writing this chapter, I kind of realized that this Sachi in my story really isn't the same Sachi in the normal story. I don't know if this is a bad thing, or a good thing, but I never really thought about it before. You could really say that Sachi is kind of an OC now. Oh well, that won't stop me from writing. Anyway, I think a few parts were rushed. Otherwise, I'm sure this chapter was good since you get to see life outside of SAO.**

**So here we start a new arc in my story. Hope you guys enjoyed it, and don't forget to drop off a review.**


	3. Chapter 2 - Pleasant Relief

Chapter 2 – Pleasant Relief

"My name is Yata Hatakeda" The boy with emerald hair said with a relaxed tone. There was something about his hair that reminded Sachi of someone. _"Please fulfill my request"_ A voice rang in Sachi's head. Amidst this, she wondered, where did she hear that voice before? She had no time to think about it at the moment however.

"This is Amaya Minato" He pointed to a rather tall girl with silvery pale hair that touched below her shoulders. She timidly waved as she hid behind the other girl.

"The one in front of her is Rika Hisazawa" The girl in front of Amaya had shiny black hair that was braided neatly into a single braid and hung loosely over her shoulder. She waved with a smile.

"This guy is Isawara Sakataki" He lastly pointed to a rather secluded boy. He nodded his head at Sachi in a lonesome manner as he kicked his feet up on the table and crossed his arms. His messy brown hair covered part of his eyes as he stared away at nothing.

"And we are the members of the computer research club" Yata said while taking a seat at the end of the table, closest to the window. It turns out from talking to these kids, Sachi learned that the computer research club was automatically disbanded by the student council due to a lack or renewal. Once the news hit the school about the death of Keita and the rest, there virtually was no computer research club anymore.

Only recently around last March did the computer research club get renewed by these four bright young minds. They were all gamers like herself, but also had avid interests in the technological world.

Yata was exceptional at building the body of code, but he was also prone to mistakes. That was were Amaya came in. Amaya was good at correcting any errors and mistakes in Yata's coding. Rika was excellent with hardware, and Isawara was a good hacker, in all situations.

They offered her something to drink, Sachi figured that she could stay for a cup of tea.

"Hey, who are the people in this photo?" Yata asked as he pointed to the photo frame on the table.

"Ah, those are close friends of mine. We used to be part of the computer research club too." Sachi replied as she sipped her tea.

"What happened to them?"

"Well…" Sachi paused for a moment trying to force it out, "They died in SAO…" She said sentimentally as she stared at the photo. It was a photo of them at the beach. Sachi remembered that day very clearly. Ducker was teasing Sachi about how she was scared of crabs and threw one at her. Keita cooked a really tasty batch of grilled corn. Sasamaru taught her how to surf, and Tetsuo built a sandcastle that they all wrecked as a joke.

The beach…It was one of Sachi's favorite places. As a matter of fact, Sachi loved to swim. Come to think of it, she hadn't gone swimming once ever since she got out of SAO. That day at the beach was one of Sachi's fondest memories. She smiled for a moment, about to close her eyes before Yata apologized.

"Oh my…. I'm, I'm soo sorry!" His face was stricken with surprise and his voice held some sympathy.

Sachi shook her head in reply, "No, it's okay. I'm quite over it now." She smiled at Yata. For once, Sachi actually felt that she managed to get past the death of her guild mates, or rather, talk about it without breaking down.

After a few moments of awkward silence, "So Sachi, do you play any VRMMORPG's?" Rika asked with much enthusiasm trying to lift the stiffened mood of the room.

It was a very pressing question, and Sachi had to think of a way on how to say it. "Yes I used to play one. But, the servers are no longer in operation."

"Oh, that's too bad" Rika replied, "We were kind of looking for a 5th member for our party. Amaya always wanders away from the group and we have to rescue her sometimes" she joked.

"H-hey! No I don't!" Amaya replied timidly as she started blushing. Obviously this gave off the impression that Amaya was the nervous and timid type of girl, the one Sachi used to be. Actually, she was quite intrigued, here she was watching her past self in action, personality wise at least.

The last one of the group, Isawara got up from his relaxed position and stretched. Yawning, he spoke up for the first time since Sachi was introduced, "If you don't mind, I'm going home."

"Okay then, bye Isawara" Yata said rather unreadily. "See you online tonight?"

"Yea, I guess so" He replied while scratching his back. Sliding open the door, he exited without looking back.

"Is he always like that?" Sachi asked rather curiously. She knew it was rude to talk about people behind their backs, but she wanted to inquire a little bit.

"Isawara-kun is the lazy kind" Rika replied as she cleaned her glasses. "Even though it might not look like he cares, he actually is very concerned about the people around him."

"He's very caring, and kind." Amaya said gathering the mugs of tea. Her face flushed a little bit when she said that. Sachi knew for an instant that Amaya had a crush on Isawara.

With the sudden change of subject again, Sachi was asked by Yata, "Hey Sachi! You have an AmuSphere right? You should play ALFheim Online with us!"

It was very sudden, and Sachi chuckled a bit. She thought about it for a moment, she was quite interested in the game after all, "Maybe" she replied as she lied also about having an AmuSphere. "It is nearing Christmas, so it's a maybe"

After saying her goodbyes, Sachi departed from the current members of the computer research club and headed home, with the box Keita entrusted to her sitting comfortably in the basket of her bike.

**December 10, 2024 **

Again, Sachi found herself rather lonely at home. She was playing a traditional MMORPG on her computer; she found that no matter how old the game is, good MMORPG's never lose their play value. The again, with the revolutionary VRMMORPG's, the predecessor has somewhat become retro in a sense. It was quite funny. Sachi remembered back when she was around 10 years old, she played this MMORPG that was called _Mabinogi: Fantasy Life_. In a few words to describe it, she would say that this game was the computerized version of SAO and ALO combined. Unfortunately, the servers were shut down a few years back, and all those hours that she spent playing was put to waste, but she loved it. It was nostalgic; through SAO, she felt as if she were walking in a land of her childhood.

Shaking away the good memories of the past, she was brought back to reality. Since it was very much so boring at the moment, Sachi decided to go out for her daily dose of exercise. There was also something else that she wanted to do while she was out. Last night, Sachi asked her mother if she could buy ALFheim Online. Her mother laughed actually, and replied saying that Sachi was a legal adult now. Her role wasn't for Sachi to ask her permission for things anymore, her role was to advise Sachi as a friend.

"Choose what you feel is right" Her mother quoted to her. So she did; and her decision was to buy the game. But a choice can only go so far. She didn't have much money, and had no job. Thankfully, Tomiichi was there to help her out. He remarked with a wink, "Merry early Christmas"

It was a bit warmer today, so she dressed rather lightly with a thin sweater. She was walking also; it was a short trip to the game store she saw yesterday, so there was no point in riding a bike.

There it was, the small store that was apparently closed yesterday. It seemed open today since there were people wandering in and out of the store.

She pulled open the door and a light bell chime was heard followed by the numerous video game noises coming from the demo's around. There were a few stands and shelves strewn about with games and accessories for consoles. Roaming around a bit before she saw the rather customized stand that bore the sign ALFheim Online. There were still quite a few copies left on the stand, so Sachi assumed that it has been out for some time, because if it were a new release, it would have been sold out. She took a copy.

To Sachi's surprise, the money Tomiichi gave her was exactly the price that was on the box of the game. He did work for a game distribution company after all, so he would probably know the price of a game as popular as ALO off hand.

Bringing the game to the counter, the person who was managing it puzzled her quite a bit. It was a very young girl, maybe around 10 years old, with bobby pink hair, and a bored expression on her face as she glanced over the pages of a magazine. The girl looked extremely familiar, yet, rather different in a sort of strange way. She wasn't in a school uniform, so Sachi figured that she worked here, but, isn't the girl a bit young to be working a part time job?

"Ummm. Excuse me…I would like to buy this" Sachi said as she laid the box on the counter.

"Hold on" The girl replied as she got up and opened the door to the back of the store, "Onee-chan! Someone's at the counter" she called out.

"Okay! Hold the door open for me!" A voice called out as a person came through the door with a rather large box in hands. "I'll be right with you" They said as they lowered the box to show their face. It was a girl, her irises weren't visible because her eyes were closed, but you could figure that they were purple because of her purple hair. Her hair was brushed to the side as her unicorn tail was tied loosely from behind.

"Sachi?" The girl asked as she put the box down on the counter. She took a closer look at Sachi and glared into her eyes. She was looking for that hint of courage and self-esteem in those blue eyes she saved more than a year before. "it is you!" she girl cried out as she smiled and laughed as well as hugging Sachi tightly.

Sachi was quite surprised herself as she hugged her best friend back. "Norie…" she replied still rather speechless.

"How have you been?" Norie asked as she let go and turned her attention back to her work.

"I've been great, it looks like you've been doing good" Sachi replied eying the pink haired girl.

"It's been going well so far." Norie replied as she put the box under the counter and popped back up. "Hey, how about we go out for some lunch and catch up?" she suggested.

"Sounds good" Sachi replied as Norie went back to open the door to the back. There was a man sitting down with a mug in his hand in the break room.

"I'm taking my break okay?" she said to him. He nodded in reply. "Alrighty then, let's go"

**ooo**

"So tell me Sachi, what's happened this past month?" Norie asked as she sipped her soda.

"Well not much, I learned that my mom remarried while we were in SAO" Sachi replied as she took a bite of her burger. She didn't eat westernized food very much, but she really enjoyed it.

"Is that so?" Norie replied.

"Noriko-chan, I have to use the restroom" The pink haired girl said tugging at the sleeve of her orange shirt.

"Go ahead Ellen, you don't have to ask for my permission" Norie replied as she sent the girl off.

"It looks like you've been doing good too" Sachi pointed out.

"I don't even know where to begin" Norie smiled in reply as she began to explain.

Norie brought back the story of how her sister Ellen was suffering from a form of liver cancer. As it turns out, the girl who just excused herself was Ellen. Norie's sister was alive and well. She had a successful surgery and there was no signs that the cancerous cells would come back. Within the two years that Norie was in SAO, she despaired over the fact that her sister "died". The problem was that Norie was so depressed, not only by Ellen having cancer, but also from her parents' constant quarrelling, that she had no hope left.

What marveled Norie almost as much as Ellen still being alive was that her parents, who really didn't care about her and even tried to kill her at some point, were still together. She had expected them to be divorced by this point in time, but from the fear of nearly losing both of their daughters, they decided to resolve their conflicts and save their marriage.

Sachi was also wondering why Norie was working so soon after she got out of SAO. Norie's muscles were actually in very good condition so she was released about a week after she woke up despite a shaky beginning. As good natured as Norie was, she decided to help out her parents with the huge medical bills that stacked up from Ellen's cancer treatment and Norie's two year hospitalization.

They did gain some money through a few lawsuits against Argus, but it was still not enough to completely cover the bills.

Most people would think that Norie was insane for helping out parents who neglected her and tried to kill her, but still, for paying for her and Ellen's medical bills, she couldn't help but want to help out. In a way, Norie pitied and forgave them.

**ooo**

_There was a light knock on my door. "Come in" I said. Entering my room and sitting at the two guest chairs were my mom, and dad, the two people I dreaded the most to see. "What do you want?" I asked rather scoldingly not even bothering to look at them._

"_Noriko…" Dad said. That was the first time in such a long time that I heard him say my name so gently instead of menacingly. I turned my head to glare into his eyes, he was… crying. Mom was too. "We're sorry" they both said._

_I blinked a few times. Was I really hearing these words? Words of… guilt… and sorrow…._

"_Do you know…. How much pain you've caused me?" I started to fight to hold back the tears that started to flow from my eyes._

"_Noriko, I..I don't know if you'll ever forgive us but… I just wanted you to know that we are sorry. We-we failed you as parents. But most of all, we failed ourselves." Dad said wiping a few tears from his eyes as he gripped Norie's hand lightly._

"_It took almost losing you two for us to realize what was important" Her mother began breaking down._

_After a few moments of crying, I managed to control my emotions. "I hate you…"_

_This phrase startled them, but at the same time, they knew it was coming._

"_I hate both of you. I hate how you've made these past few years a living hell for me. I hate how it took so much for you to realize your mistakes. I hate it, I hate it all!" I yelled out. Pausing for a moment to let the anger pass through my mind, I started to speak again. "But, that's all in the past now isn't it?" I looked at both of them trying my best to smile. "I guess second chances aren't out of the question"_

_Mom and dad gasped when they heard this, and began to cry even harder. Forgiveness is surely a powerful thing indeed. _

**ooo**

Sachi also learned that Norie's real name was Noriko Horigome, but she replied, Norie's always been what Sachi will call her, and she'll stick with her.

"I feel so guilty now that I think about it" Norie said as she glared down at her plate, "I was given so many second chances, yet, I never wanted them. And here I am now"

Sachi nodded her head in understanding as Ellen (Keren) sat back down at the table. The 10 year old girl that sat down was so strikingly similar to the virtual girl that loved to terrorize Sachi, she wasn't sure whether it was a coincidence that they looked the same. Though the pink hair was drastically different in style, it was still the same soft pink hair. Her eyes flared with a sense of innocence that hid the rather sinister personality, yet, she still had the sincere look of understanding upon her face.

Sachi also noticed, both Ellen's appetites were rather large. She chuckled at this thought.

After they finished lunch, they headed back to the store.

"Oh, that's right Norie" Sachi almost forgot the reason why she was here at the store, "I would like to buy this" she pointed to the copy of ALFheim Online that was left on the counter from when they left.

"Ah, back into VRMOORPG's already?" Norie commented as she scanned the back of the game and took Sachi's money.

"I guess" Sachi laughed back as she took the game in hand.

"Maybe I should start to get back too eh?" Norie joked as she waved, "Just like the old days"

"Just like the old days" Sachi repeated paused for a moment. She rushed forward and hugged Norie tightly, overcome with somewhat sentimental emotion, "Thanks Norie. I wouldn't be standing here today, if it weren't for you"

Norie was slightly surprised until she heard the words of thanks, and she smiled. "You're welcome Sachi."

**ooo**

Sachi hastily took her shoes off and pounced up the stairs to her room. Everyone probably feels anxious to play the new games they get, it's a universal feeling. Not bothering to change her clothes, she picked up her Nervegear gently, opened the ALFheim Online box, took the disc out and slid it into the C-Drive compartment. She laid down in her bed, fit her head snugly into the "helmet of death". She wasn't scared of putting it back on to be honest.

"Link, start!"

There was a white flash, followed by a colorful array of rods that foreshortened their way towards her gaze. Then Sachi found herself in a familiar empty beach. She was standing in an island of sand surrounded by a field of blue crashing waves.

"_I forgot…."_ Sachi remembered that before you played a game, there was a default environment that was installed in the Nervegear. It was kind of like your "virtual room" in which you could customize in ways unimaginable. Sachi had completely forgotten about this until today.

Sachi sniffed the salty sea air as she swiped her fingers in the air in front of her, and a window popped up with the ALFheim Online client selected. She pressed play, and a window popped up in front of her. She gasped with surprise.

_The software on your AmuSphere seems to be outdated, in order to play ALFheim Online, you must update your software. Would you like to update?_

Sachi pressed yes assuming that it would be a small update, but she was rather outraged when another window popped up.

_Update in Progress. Estimated time left: 0d 27h 13m_

"Eh…." She murmured as she was a little mad. The thing gamers hate the most, updating their software in order to play a game. It seemed that not only was the update rather large, but it also had to reconfigure the FullDive settings on Sachi's Nervegear to accommodate the FullDive settings of an AmuSphere also. Sighing rather tiredly, Sachi opened up the main menu again, and pressed the "Exit" button.

_You are currently updating your software, if you leave now, your device will stay on until your update completes. _

Pressing OK, Sachi slowly saw the outlines of her room form from behind the visor of her Nervegear.

"Sachi! Sachi!" she heard her mother call out from downstairs. "You have a guest!"

"A guest?" she asked herself as she wiggled her feet into her slippers and hastily made her way downstairs. "Who is it?" she asked as she walked down the last few stairs.

"Yo!" A familiar voice said as he popped out from behind Eri.

"Keshiga?"

**ooo**

"I saw Norie today" Sachi said as she set her glass of tea down. They were sitting on the porch to Sachi's backyard, hands intertwined.

"Oh did you?" Keshiga replied with his usual toothy grin, "I saw her yesterday. She seems to be doing great. I'm happy for her."

"I am too" Sachi replied with a pleasant relief as she glared at her boyfriend. Ieshiga Okashii, aka Keshiga, 19 year old musician. His brown hair was loosely combed as his mouth curved upward in a gentle smile. His former eyes of fiery passion and enthusiasm brimmed with a calmness and quiet encouragement.

His hands were very cold, partially due to the fact that he was extremely thin, even thinner than Sachi. He was admitted from the hospital about a couple days ago, but he woke up with somewhat lesser bodily condition. They told him he couldn't play an instrument again until his fingers regained their muscle tone which wouldn't be for maybe another month or two. It was like telling a bird it couldn't fly, or telling Sachi she can't swim anymore.

He was very distraught, after this, and was somewhat under the weather. But of course, he's always more cheerful when he's around Sachi.

"Ne Keshiga, do you wonder how everyone else is doing?" Sachi asked.

"Everyday" Keshiga replied as he pressed his cold tea glass against Sachi's cheek playfully.

"Ah!" Sachi reacted by rubbing her cheek.

Keshiga chuckled, "Actually, I got an email from Futaro a couple days ago. He said that everyone else was doing great."

"Really?" Sachi asked with relief.

This petty chatter droned on and on as Tomiichi and Eri watched the two of them from the kitchen.

"Where they together before?" Tomiichi asked as he eyed Keshiga with slight concern. Eri simply shook her head assuring him that it was okay. Eri knew that Keshiga was a good kid, but it was a bit hard convincing Tomiichi about that.

"They must have met in that world" Eri replied as she smiled, "I think they're a good pair"

**A/N: Hello all, I'm back with another chapter. Some more real life stuff and etc. **

**I do feel that this chapter was very rushed, especially with the new computer research kids, and reunion with Norie and such. Though, writing this story in the middle of class does have its tolls x.x**

**Oh well. I do believe that I got the main flow of events down though. I have a lot of future things planned out already, the problem is that it's quite difficult for me to construct the smaller things like dialogue and such.**

**Anyway, sorry for the long delay, I'll hopefully process the next chapter in a week or so. **

**That's all I have to say for now, stayed tuned, and don't forget to drop in a review.**


	4. Chapter 3 - Hauntings from the Past

Chapter 3 – Hauntings from the Past

**December 11, 2024 **

Sachi was awakened by the light humming of her phone. Reaching up lazily to check what the notification was, it was a text from Keshiga. She grumbled a bit, it was 5:00 in the morning. She read it hazily.

"_Are you going to the interview today?"_

"Interview?" Sachi mumbled to herself as she replied, "What interview?"

Closing her phone and covering her head back under her sheets, a few minutes passed before a reply came back.

"_The one with the SAO investigations officer" _

"Officer….Oh right" Sachi realized. She remembered that she had to go to an interview with an SAO investigations officer. They were going to ask her questions about what happened in SAO. It was rather mandatory for all victims of SAO to be interviewed because the Ministry of Internal Affairs must keep track of any sort of manslaughters made and the witnesses to support those also need to keep track of those who contributed to completing the game and all the details to the world that they would never experience.

Sachi yawned as she typed in another reply to Keshiga,

"_Hun, what time is the interview?"_

"_Around 10"_

Sachi sighed as she flopped back down on her pillow. "_Go back to sleep" _she replied lastly before closing her eyes again.

**ooo**

"Good morning family" Tomiichi said as he trotted into the kitchen. "Good morning Sachi" he said rubbing her hair as he kissed Eri. Sitting down across from the yawning Sachi, he began eating breakfast.

"Good morning dear"

"Morning Tomiichi-san"

For a split second, there seemed to be something that made Tomiichi pause for a moment. Sachi wondered what was up, but he quickly returned back to eating.

"So Sachi, have you played ALFheim Online yet?" Tomiichi inquired trying to get some chatter going on.

Sachi shook her head, "No, I had to update the software on my NerveGear. I checked this morning, it still needs about a couple more hours to finish"

"Oh," Tomiichi tilted his head, "How long was the update?"

"27 hours" Sachi replied very casually.

"Ehhh?! 27 hours?!" Tomiichi blurt out in a surprised manner, "The update was _that_ big?"

Sachi nodded, with her spoon in her mouth. "But spending some time with Keshiga made it go by fast" she smiled.

Tomiichi sighed before going back to eating, "Well, I guess the software on the NerveGear is outdated, it has been two years since it's been updated after all. So the patches that have accumulated on the various VRMMORPG's that have been released since SAO do add up." He wasn't a stranger on the subject of video games, Sachi pleasantly surprised when she found this it, and often times found a discussion with Tomiichi quite enjoyable. Her mother began participating in the new age of technology only recently. Thankfully, she had both Sachi and Tomiichi to go to for help, which she frequently needed.

"What time is your interview again?" Eri asked as she sat down to eat.

"10" Sachi replied bluntly

"Do you need a ride?" Tomiichi offered placing his chopsticks down

Sachi shook her head in reply, "The place isn't too far, and Keshiga's coming also. So we'll walk there"

"Ah okay" Tomiichi replied a little disappointed about being rejected by his step-daughter. Sachi was quite oblivious to this, but she was also oblivious to how Tomiichi rather disapproved of Sachi's relationship with Keshiga.

**ooo**

The offices of the Ministry of Internal Affairs that both Sachi and Keshiga were directed to was around the southern portion of Fujimino City, towards Tokyo. It was about a 25 minute walk, but since Sachi had to wait a bit for Keshiga, it would take them a bit longer to get there. That was okay with her though, they left at around 9:00, so they should be a bit early.

"Have you talked to Irina?" Sachi asked as she suddenly remembered that both Keshiga and Irina were friends in school.

"Of course." Keshiga replied as he rubbed his runny nose, "She's still in the hospital, but she's doing well. Look, I even have a picture" he said browsing through his smartphone to his photos and showed Sachi.

It was a girl, with long black hair; she was a little bit more difficult to recognize without her brimmed feather hat, but it was definitely Irina. She was smiling very widely holding her hands up to her cheeks with a peace sign. Sachi smiled in return as she chuckled. She seemed to be doing extremely well after _that_ incident back in August. Those words back then still haunted her.

_Someday…. You'll pay….I'll make sure of it_

It sent chills down Sachi's spine as she quivered.

"It'll be nice for all of us to sit down and have lunch together again" Keshiga added as gripped Sachi's warm hand. He noticed the quiver and glanced at her.

"I'd like that too" Sachi replied shaking it off.

In total, it took them about 35 minutes to get to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, but they were still making good time. It was a rather midsized office building. It looked a bit more on the modern side by fusing some contemporary architectural styles and twisting it into something that one might find in a video game. Still, the boundary between the real world and the virtual world was extremely clear, yet extremely blurry at the same time.

Sachi gripped the handle of the glass door firmly, and pulled. It opened very smoothly and easily showing a lack of rust, indicating that it was a newer building. She entered after Keshiga and suddenly felt a blast of warm air tingle her face.

"Can I help you?" The receptionist asked from behind the counter.

"Ah, we're here for the interview with the SAO Investigations Officer" Sachi said resting her hands on the counter.

"Oh, let me just notify him. Please have a seat over there" She replied pointing to the small lobby with her pen.

Doing so accordingly, Sachi sat down next to Keshiga as she looked around. The lobby looked a bit like a dentist's office, about 10 chairs strewn around a table with a few magazines piled messily on top. In front of her was a hallway that occasionally had a few office workers traveling about. Planted along the walls around them were paintings that were quite odd in taste. The constant humming of the air quality regulator and the tapping of the keyboard from the receptionist gave a rather calming aura.

They sat there quietly holding hands for about 10 minutes until the door opened again. The lounge they were sitting in was to the right of the receptionists counter, the door was in front of the counter, but there was a wall that was offset blocking sight of whoever entered until they walked up to the receptionist.

"Hi, can I help you?" The receptionist asked.

"Hello, I'm here for the interview" The familiar voice of a female rang through the walls.

"Okay, please take a seat over there with the other two"

The footsteps sounded, and Sachi leaned forward and turned her head left to see who was approaching. The person stopped and held a hand up in a wave as she saw Sachi and Keshiga. "Yo" It was Norie.

"Norie!" Keshiga chanted in an uplifted tone.

"Hi Norie" Sachi waved as Norie took a seat across the couple.

"Funny seeing you two here" Norie chuckled in her usual tone as she crossed her legs in a gentleman's style. "So you two are here for the interview too?" she asked.

Both of them nodded in return.

"So how's Ellen doing Norie?" Keshiga inquired as he pulled his headphones down from his head.

"She's doing good, though, I never thought she would end up being healthier than me" Norie joked.

It felt extremely good to Sachi that the party was back together. It was almost the same feeling she had last Christmas, when all three of them were reunited after a few months of absence. Here they are again, back together as best friends in the real world. Come to think of it, Christmas was rapidly approaching. Sachi glared at Keshiga for a moment, she wondered what she could get him for Christmas.

"Excuse me, are you three here for the interview?" The voice of a rather quiet man asked as he entered the lobby from the hallway.

All three of them nodded in return and examined the man with diligence. He was a chunkier middle aged man, not too much, but you could tell he used to be more fit. His face had a rather constantly content look on his face as his horn rimmed glasses hung at the near end of his nose. His eyes drooped with bags below them indicating that he was extremely stressed out. There was a hint of depression in his eyes as they shone with sadness.

"Ah, please follow me then" He replied as he motioned his hand towards himself.

His office was smack in the middle of the hallway on the right.

"Sorry for the wait, I was making a phone call" The man replied as he opened his door, "Please have a seat"

Before walking into the room, Sachi glanced at the plaque on the door next to his wall.

_Okutse Ranamura – SAO Investigation Officer_

The text was engraved in the golden plate that was drilled onto a slab of dark brown wood.

His office was plain. A single desk with papers and manila folders strewn about sat towards the right of the room. Opposite the door they entered from was a large window that was partially covered by blinds that let rectangles of light through. There were three soft cushion chairs that were in front of the desk.

Taking a seat, in between Keshiga and Norie, Sachi wiggled in her seat a bit. It was a bit too soft for her taste, but she wasn't going to complain.

"Ahem, let me introduce myself. My name is Okutse Ranamura. First off, here's my card" He replied standing up from his seat and leaning forward holding out three business cards that had his information on it. It was very common in Japan for people to give business cards out since it was a very regular practice in most industries. "Today I will be asking you guys a few questions about SAO. Sachiyo Shibaguchi correct?" He asked Sachi as she nodded as she slid the card into her pocket, "Noriko Horigome, and Ieshiga Okashii." Both of them nodded in return. "Usernames were Sachi, Norie and Keshiga respectively?" He asked with nods in reply. As it turns out, they were calling the players of SAO down from highest level to get the most information from the most experienced players, but they also called players who had relations with each other at the same time.

Sachi glanced at the corner of her eye to Keshiga. It seemed as if there was something on his mind. There certainly was something on his mind. Ranamura, where had he heard that last name before? He wondered to himself. That last name caught his attention as he tried to dive into the surges of his memory.

"Okay, now that I've got the right people, I'll start with a few questions" He began to say, "So, what were your lives in SAO like?"

Sachi spoke for this one explaining some of the struggles she experienced in the beginning of the game, and the loss of the original members of the Black Cats of the Full Moon. She also come to explain how all three of them were in the New Black Cats of the Full Moon, an upper leveled clearing guild, and that all three of them were present at the crusade against the red players and at the final battle.

Norie also explained her time towards the beginning of the game helping out the slower players in tricky situations. She also explained saving Sachi, and how she was a Spirit Weapon user and all the like.

Keshiga also noted about his instrument playing and his time with Futaro's Mercenaries and then the transition into Sachi's guild.

Nodding his head as he sat silent for a moment. His suspicions were almost right, he just needed to ask one more question to confirm it. Could this girl truly be the killer of his son? His mind flashed back to that day a few months back, that letter. "I see. Have you, ever killed a player?" he asked, "I mean, out of self-defense or something" He voice sounded tense as he stared at Sachi with blank eyes. The questions was very much so out of Sachi's expectations when she walked into this room.

"Well," Sachi paused for a moment as she hesitated for a moment, "I have killed a player"

"What was his name?" Okutse inquired. He seemed very anxious about getting answers from Sachi.

Sachi paused again before she bit her lip out of nervousness. She wasn't used to this type of questioning before, it felt as if she were a criminal in the questioning room at the police station. She knew there would be no legal action because she had many witnesses on her side, but still, she couldn't help but remember those words that haunted her.

_Someday…. You'll pay….I'll make sure of it_

Breathing in a bit to slow hear beating heart, "Tsurugi. His name was Tsurugi"

Okutse Ranamura was silent again. "I think that's all I need to know. Thank you, you may leave now."

**ooo**

The moment the three of them left, Okutse closed his door and sat down. His mind was in a haze as he took his glasses off and rubbed his face. "She's the one" he muttered sliding open the drawer to his right. The letter, heavenly white paper that was stained by the black ink of the twisted truth laid there motionlessly in his drawer with two neat creases as he took it out, rereading the horrifying final words his deceased son gave to him.

_I was killed. Avenge me. My killer is Sachi._

"How, how can I kill… a person?" He cried out in agony as the words from his dead son rang in his head over and over again. _Avenge me….avenge me…..avenge me, My killer is…_

"Sachi…." Okutse muttered finishing the words as he clutched his head thrashing about. There was a searing pain that he couldn't control, and no matter how hard he tried to drone it out, that voice rang in his head. After a fit full of resistance, the pain stopped. Okutse found himself on the ground, panting and sweating. Slowly getting himself back up to his desk, he looked over on a paper on his desk.

"Revenge…."

**ooo**

That was quite a strange interview Sachi preached to Norie and Keshiga as they mingled in front of the building. They both agreed, the man seemed rather, conspicuous.

"What's wrong Keshiga?" Sachi asked as she remembered that Keshiga had something on his mind during the interview.

"Nothing" Keshiga shook off as he rubbed his chin, "Well, actually, it felt as if I knew the man or at least, had some sort of connection with him. I've heard his last name somewhere before, but I just can't remember where…Nothing, never mind. Maybe it'll come to me later, but I guess it doesn't matter too much"

Sachi tilted her head as he finished talking, "So what do you guys want to do right now?" she asked.

"Sorry Sachi, I've got to get back to work. I do want to hang out, but today's going to be a busy day" Norie apologized rubbing Sachi and Keshiga's hair as she waved. "See you guys later okay?"

Both of them waved in reply after saying their goodbyes.

"I have to go too Sachi, I've got a doctor's appointment today, and my mom doesn't want us to be late" Keshiga replied kissing Sachi on the cheek lightly and started jogging his way home.

Rubbing her cheek, Sachi smiled as she waved at the diminishing figure of her boyfriend. She sighed and looked around, "What to do now?" she wondered to herself as she walked around. Eri and Tomiichi weren't home at the moment, so it would be quite boring at home. As Sachi contemplated on what to do later today, she suddenly remembered that the update on her NerveGear should be done by now, but at the same time, her stomach growled. Perhaps she should get some lunch beforehand.

There was a small restaurant on the way home that Sachi decided to stop by. There was a nice family vibe that came as she sat down at one of the tables. She didn't have a whole lot of money on her at the moment, so she decided to order something rather inexpensive. A small bowl of ramen would suffice very well.

Leaning back in her seat after taking a sip of water, Sachi closed her eyes. She just sat there, not really thinking about anything in particular. Her train of silence was broken by a few voices behind her that she recognized.

"Yata, are you sure we should run the quest today?" A girl asked.

"Of course Rika! What, are you scared?" Yata replied with a sneering tone.

"No! Of course not!" Rika replied snobily

"Rika? Yata?" Sachi asked as she twisted around to look back. As sure as she was, Rika and Yata were both sitting down for lunch. Both of them were not in their school uniforms, so Sachi assumed that they got today off. That was a little surprising to her because it was a Wednesday.

"Ah…" Yata was about to say hello before he tried to remember Sachi's name.

"Oh, hello Sachi" Rika replied, "Would you like to join us?"

**ooo**

"So have you gotten ALO yet Sachi?" Yata asked as he slurped the noodles of his ramen noisily.

Sachi nodded, "A friend of mine works at a game store, so I got a copy from her" She replied as she glared at the two. "Where's Amaya and Isawara?" Inquiring about the two missing persons from the group.

"Isawara is babysitting his sister" Rika replied, "But honestly, I don't know where Amaya is. I texted her, but she hasn't replied" Finishing her statement, she wiped her mouth cleanly with a napkin in contrast to Yata wiping his mouth with his sleeve.

"Are you going to play the first thing you get home?" The smiling green haired boy asked. That same voice rang again in Sachi's head. Where? Where did she hear that voice before? She couldn't figure it out.

"Sachi?"

"Oh, mhm" Sachi replied suddenly remembering that she was asked a question after she spaced out for a moment.

"Ah, great! Here, I'll give you our character names so that you can add us in game" Yata said while simultaneously taking a note pad from his bag. "Here you go"

Sachi thanked him duly as she read their in game names,

_Ronku – Yata_

_Sumia – Rika_

_Leslie – Amaya_

_Cassio – Isawara_

Those certainly were some creative names Sachi thought to herself, her username was just a shortened version of her full name, so there really was nothing extremely creative about hers.

"We're doing a quest later on around 6, you're free to join us if you want. It's going to be a pretty easy quest, so you don't have anything to worry about" Yata added as he held his bowl up indicating he wanted more. In all actuality, this was a prank that Yata always did to any new player that entered their group. Usually, if someone wanted to join their party, and if Yata "knew" that that person was rather new and inexperienced, he would invite them on a quest with the party. He would say that the quest was "easy", but for them it was easy, not for the new player. So during the time they are doing the quest, the new player would die countless times and get frustrated. But the real test was to see if that player was okay with being tricked, which has failed all the times that Yata had tried this prank.

"Count me in" Sachi replied as she folded the note neatly and stuffed it into her pocket.

"Great! We'll see you there then!" Rika replied slapping Yata lightly for being ill mannered while eating.

After Sachi had left, Yata and Rika examined her as she walked out. "Hey, do you think she'll be okay with us tricking her like that?" Rika asked with primal concern, "I wouldn't want another party member to leave"

"Ah don't worry, I think she'll take it very well" Yata replied still glaring at the door that Sachi left through.

**ooo**

"Mom? Tomiichi-san?" Sachi called out as she entered through the front door of her house. She looked around a bit, no response. It seemed that they weren't home at the moment, just as she thought earlier. Entering the kitchen, there was a small note on the fridge.

_Dinners in the fridge, we'll be home soon_

"Eh…" Sachi read the note as she ignored the dinner part. She was quite full from lunch, and she didn't plan on eating for another couple hours or so. All she had on her mind was getting up to her room and playing ALO. Hastily jetting up the stairs, she rushed to her room, not bothering to close the door. She slid out of her clothes and put on some comfortable pajama's, light blue in color and flopped onto her bed. She slid the heavy NerveGear onto her head,

"Link, Start!"

That familiar flash of white light followed by the numerously colored rods ensued her vision. Then, slowly fading into view, the blue horizon of the sea came into Sachi's view along with the tropical environment around her. The ominous sound of the rolling waves soothed Sachi's anxiousness as the menu opened to prompt any further action.

The update finished as Sachi hoped it would be. Smiling with glee, Sachi pressed the icon for ALO, and another white flashed appeared. Only this time, it faded to darkness.

_**Welcome to ALFheim Online!**_

The large bold letters flashed through the darkness in large white text. An orange stream of lights simmered their way around Sachi, and then blue panels filled the spaces between the orange divisions.

"_Welcome to ALFheim Online. Your device seems to already have an account attached to it, would you like to use that?" _The robotic voice of the instruction guidance asked.

"Yes" Sachi replied as clearly and loudly as she could.

"_Very well, account has been successfully attached to the main ALO server. Please type in a character name." _

A text box appeared in front of Sachi with a full blown keyboard accompanying it. Obviously going for her trademark name, Sachi hoped that the name "Sachi" wasn't taken. In every MMORPG, a player always hopes to get the name that he/she wants, though, names will not always be available, so it's a first come first serve basis. Thankfully for Sachi, her name was available.

_In ALFheim Online, there are nine different races of elves that you may choose from. Please browse through the available races and decide on which will fulfill your personality the best. _

There was a rather colorful array of avatars to choose from, each portraying to the different races in ALO. The first race that appeared was a Cait Sith. Skilled beast tamers and good eyesight. They had cat ears and tails. Sachi chuckled, this race would be perfect for a certain someone she knew. Sadly, Sachi wasn't good with animals, so she went to the next race to see if something else caught her interest.

The next was gnomes. They were larger and bulkier, giving them the impression of earth and of being more close combat oriented than the other races. Even back with the Black Cats of the Full Moon and the latter portions of SAO, Sachi never really liked being the tank of the party because she felt it was too much responsibility to bear because she would be the one to die the fastest and for the earlier portions, of SAO, her being terrified drew her interest away from it.

Imps where the next race. Great night vision, and the ability to fly without the presence of light. A bit too stealthy for Sachi's taste since she never really liked the assassin role.

Next were the Leprechauns. Blacksmith race with mechanical wings. More of an economic role which Sachi hardly took part in. She was very conservative with money after all.

Puca's made Sachi smile very much so. Mainly because it was the perfect race for Keshiga. A music playing race for support, and combat. Sachi herself, though, was never a music person, so she skipped it.

Salamanders had the affinity of fire, but also the affinity of powerful close combat, even more so than gnomes. As a more styled in fire type of magic, Sachi was rather dissuaded because of it.

Sylphs were the next race in line. They were the fastest and use wind magic. In terms of attractiveness Sachi was quite intrigued. She did like playing the fast role, and back in SAO, she was considered quite fast by her friends. Keeping the Sylphs in mind, she yelped with glee at the last race.

The Undines were a water based race with superior swimming and support skills than the other races. It was really a no brainer for Sachi when deciding what race to choose, it was rather, a perfect match for herself. Indeed she liked to play the mage/support role back with Keita and the rest, but a swimming feature got Sachi hooked instantly. Even more so than a perfect match, it was a fateful coincidence that was wrought about by the none other than the author themselves.

4th wall breaking aside, once Sachi decided on a race, the Undines, she was then prompted to another window by the robotic voice again.

_Would you like your appearance to be randomized?_

Sachi figured that she could spend some time to customize herself a bit as she pressed no. Next thing she knew, she was standing in front of a large oval shaped mirror, completely different in appearance. Instead of her blue pajama's, she was wearing a beginner looking outfit that consisted of a teal blouse, dark blue wrap skirt, white socks that reached up to her knees, blue loafer shoes, and a short cape that matched the color of her top which covered her shoulders and upper arms.

There were numerous hairstyles that she could play with, but she was limited to a certain spectrum of colors, primarily blue. She could change her eye color too, but she didn't see too much point since everything was more or less blue either way. In most games she's played, the most important thing that she concerned herself with was the hairstyle that she was going to use for her character. Since most of the hair styles where a bit too flashy for her, she decided to stick with a simple hime style cut that was similar to hers, but it was longer in the back and on the sides.

After all the preliminary work was done, she pressed create character, and the voice rang in her head again.

_Character creation successful! Please wait while you are transported to your home city. _

A few moments passed, and then Sachi was sucked into a vortex of air that sent caused her head to shake, and a sense of cool air blasted her face. Closing her eyes for a moment before the cool air flushed her face, she opened them to find herself in midair.

"Wha-?! Wait, ahhh!" Sachi yelped out. Even with the new brave and improved Sachi, she still suffered from a sort of acrophobia as she waved her arms and legs around while she float aimlessly through the air descending slowly towards the ground. After trying to calm down a bit, she glared at the land below her.

She was above an island connected to the mainland by a long bridge. On the island was a large castle like city that was enclosed by a stone wall surrounding the perimeter. It seemed extremely medieval and reminded her of certain floors of Aincrad. From her position. She stared in a daze until she suddenly remembered that she was still in the air. Panicking as she felt the auto pilot direct her towards a rather tall tower, she tried to divert herself away from it afraid that she might hit the wall. To her immense relief, she saw a platform with some players departing and approaching it just like her. It seemed like a landing pad of some sort in a way. They said that you could fly in this game, it wasn't something that Sachi was too fond of, but she had to do it otherwise. Closing her eyes and swinging her feet around, she tried to feel around for the platform so she can get on stable ground again. After a few seconds, she felt her foot touch something, and she opened her eyes to sigh out of relief, she did indeed reach the platform, but only one foot was secure on it. When she tried to get her other foot on the platform, she felt that the auto pilot was turned off once she took step on the platform. Feeling the force of gravity pull her down, Sachi was sent flying backwards down towards the actual ground of the city.

"Waaaaahhhh!" She cried out swinging her arms around drastically to search for something to grab onto.

"Hold on! I got you!" A voice called out as she saw the figure of a male fly towards her from the platform tower. Eventually, he came into view with his arm stretched out, flying as fast as he could.

Sachi also stretched out her hand in attempt to latch on. Closer and closer he got until their hands were almost grasped together. But at the moment their fingers touched, the gap between them began to grow and grow.

"No!" The male called out trying to speed himself up, but it was too late, Sachi was already descending at terminal velocity, a state in which she is no longer accelerating, and is falling at the maximum speed. He pulled upwards to avoid the ground himself, and the feeling of cool air whisking through Sachi's hair was suddenly replaced by the chilly sensation of cold water that permeated her senses.

**A/N: Hey guys! Sorry for not adding notes when I posted the chapter up, I was bit busy, so it kind of slipped my mind. So now, Sachi has gotten back into the virtual world, what'll be in store for her?**

**Sorry if my stories haven't been up to the quality that you guys would expect, but I 've writing sparingly and during the middle of class, so I'm not at my most concentrated state of mind. Bear with me though!**

**Anyway, I'm having a grand time writing these, and I hope to give you guys a good read. So, that's all for now, don't forget to drop a review down below!**


	5. Chapter 4 - The Voice of Guilt

Chapter 4 – The Voice of Guilt; A Shiver of Madness

The familiar drench of cold water brought Sachi back to her senses as she weaved her arms back and forth propelling herself towards the surface of the water. Popping her head back up to catch her "breath", she looked around. She was in the middle of a large pool of water in the middle of the plaza. There were stares and giggles from other players as she chuckled wryly and began to swim towards the edge of the pool. When she reached there, she was greeted by a hand as she looked up.

"Here, let me lend you a hand" The male undine that tried to save her from her watery demise said as Sachi took a grip of his hand. "Sorry about that, but I couldn't fly any faster"

"Oh no, it's okay. Thanks though" Sachi replied as she examined him. His light teal hair was very curly, and looked a bit feminine in a sense. His voice was very soft, and his face gave him the impression of being very polite, and his hands were slim. He was wearing a sort of robe that was slit along the sides to reveal the pants he wore underneath. The cloth gathered at the top of his knees because of his boots, and he had a flowing cape that dropped just above his waist. At his hip was a sword sheathed with a blue crystalline hilt, and on his head was a sort of circlet with an aquamarine encrusted in the middle.

"Are you new to the game?" He asked her.

Sachi nodded her head as she squeezed the water out of her short cape.

"I could tell by that stunt you pulled back there" He replied giggling slightly, "My name is Wesson, what's yours?"

"Sachi" Sachi replied following up on the handshake Wesson offered, "Hehe, I still haven't gotten the hang of this flying thing yet"

"Don't worry, you'll get it eventually"

"Wesson! Wesson! What are you doing? We have to go now! Or else we're going to be late for the meeting" A few players called out from above as they descended next to him.

"Oh, sorry about that. Well, it was nice meeting you Sachi, see you around town okay?" Wesson replied as he waved.

"Ah" Sachi replied with a wave of her own, though, a bit awkwardly. Watching him depart from her, she sighed as she looked around at the sights surrounding her.

"I'm back" she said with a smile. It was indeed something to be happy about, well, for her at least. Sachi was back in the virtual world, though, a world that always seemed so real to her. Her misplaced reality.

**ooo**

The capital city was a very large one by that fact, so it took Sachi a while to get all or at least most of the tutorial quests done in order to get to the fighting part. Most of it was delivery, and trying to familiarize herself with all the functions and NPC's so that you can find them later. The next quest directed her to the marshes just past the bridge to the mainland, so it wasn't very far.

The marshes was a beginner area, in which there were few players. The occasional newbie could be seen, but mostly secluded due to intimidation from more experienced players.

Squeezing her thumb and middle finger together, she swiped the air in front of her expecting the menu to pop up. "Wh-…." She muttered swiping again momentarily forgetting that to open the menu, one must use the left hand in contrast to the right hand in SAO. The familiar bells rang in her head along with nearly the same menu theme that Sachi had heard so much.

"Just like that other world" Sachi muttered to herself with a slight chuckle of relief. "Let me see" she murmured to herself as she opened up her inventory. She noticed that she didn't have any weapon equipped, so she searched for the beginner sword that the tutorials gave her.

"What in the world…?" She asked in surprise as she saw what was in her inventory. There were a bunch of slots taken, all of them filled with unknown and random characters that Sachi didn't even know was possible to input into computer text. "What is all this?" She asked herself equipping a _Trainee Sword_, the only readable text in her inventory. Out of curiosity, she tried equipping the unknown gear, but with no avail. A window appeared that said _Item cannot be configured._ "Never mind" She thought to herself as she shifted focus back to the task on hand.

Once she equipped the sword, the skills menu popped up as part of the tutorial.

"Ehhh?!" Sachi stared at the skills in her skill slots speechless. There was about 11 skills in her skills slots, and numerous others in her Reserve Skills Slots (Slots for unused skills). She read them over and over, still unsure of what was sitting before her.

_? ? – 1000/1000 MAX_

_One-handed Sword Mastery – 1000/1000 MAX_

_Parry – 751/1000_

_Battle Healing – 724/1000_

_Emergency Recovery – 476/1000 _

_Hearing – 849/1000_

_Cloth Armor Mastery – 788/1000_

_Light Armor Mastery – 650/1000_

_Potion Making – 904/1000_

_Cooking – 546/1000_

_Hiding – 532/1000_

Sachi didn't know whether or not this was a bug of some sort, but all these skills were the exact same skills and proficiency that she possessed in SAO. Everything was the same, though, one skill was blotched out with question marks, but she knew what it was. Her head was spinning, and she was confused beyond imagination.

"How….how did these…end up here…? Wait a minute! If my skills are still here, then those items are…" Sachi muttered as she opened up her inventory again. "All these items are…. From SAO" She realized as she glanced at the characters and symbols again. A wave of nostalgia swept up in Sachi's mind as she fell backwards to a sitting position. All those memories from SAO, the good ones, the bad ones, all of them flashed in Sachi's mind like a slideshow fast-forwarded a hundredfold.

Unsure of what to do with these useless items, Sachi decided, after a few minutes of debating, that she should delete all her items from SAO. They were useless here anyway more or less. Though it took her a while to overcome the sentimentality she experienced while trying to press yes when the delete prompt appeared, she sighed with relief once the deed was one.

All those days training, all that money used to upgrade and preserve her items, all of it went just like that. "Oh well…" Sachi thought to herself smiling for some strange reason, "It's a new game, a new start"

**ooo**

After managing to recover from the slight shock that occurred to her when finding out that all her skills and items from SAO somehow transferred to ALO, Sachi decided to explore something different for a change. "A cheater" She chuckled to herself. Indeed she was one. Only about one and a half hours played of ALO, and she's already got more done than it would take around 80% of the ALO population to complete in a year. Since it would seem boring and pointless to continue with the sword because she already maxed it out, Sachi decided to go with something different, something that she could never experience in the world of SAO, magic she figured. Archery seemed like a cool system to work with, but then again, Sachi was quite a bad shot, instead, she decided to undertake the magic tutorial.

Magic was divided into three types, offensive, defensive, and supportive magic. Each types of magic are then divided among elements, such as water, fire, wind, earth, dark and etc.

The spells used within the three types of magic also have different spell tiers, third tier, second tier, and first tier spells. Third tier spells were the weakest and most basic types of magic, but serve as prerequisites to spells in the second and first tier. These take up the least MP even when used frequently. Second tier spells were, as implied, in the middle. The spells were rather strong, and have moderate MP cost with marginally more or the same benefits of the cost. Users may run out of MP when these spells are used frequently. The first tier house the most powerful spells with the most area of effect and highest damage and potency. These spells took up the most MP, and are very difficult to acquire and train because of their costs, but every ounce of effort is worth it. These spells have the power to turn the tide in massive battles between races, or take down strong monsters with relative ease.

Magic skills in skills slots are added under two slots. One slot is Magic Mastery, which affects the amount of MP the user has, the speed at which MP is recovered, and the level of spells that the user can learn.

The next slot was Spell Mastery. Spell mastery is divided into Water Spells, Ice Spells, and Supportive Spells for Undines, for other races, it may differ. Water and Ice are then further divided into Offense and Defense, while Supportive is divided into Buffs, Healing, and Revival. Spells in this category work similar to regular skill slots when training.

Example.

_Spell Mastery (Press to Expand)_

_Water Spells_

_Water Strike - 1/1000_

_Other spells here – 0/1000_

_Ice Spells_

_Ice Shard - 1/1000_

_Other spells here – 0/1000_

_Support Spells_

_Heal – 1/1000_

_Revive – 1/1000_

_Bonds of Encouragement – 1/1000_

_Other spells here – 0/1000_

For Undines, the core element is water, but also branches off into ice and higher levels of support that other races do not have access to. For now, the only spells available to Sachi were:

_Water Strike – _A skill where a ball of water is highly concentrated and accelerated at a very high speed.

_Ice Shard _– A skill in which a shard of ice is formed and thrust in a same manner as Water Strike.

_Heal _– A basic level healing spell that healed for about 25 HP. HP in ALO wasn't as important as it was in SAO, because of this, HP was usually constant throughout the whole player base, which was around the 400 mark.

_Revive_ – As the name implies, Revive was a basic level support spell that revived a target and restored about 20% HP.

_Bonds of Encouragement – _Fancy name aside, this was a buff spell that increased an ally's attack damage by a certain amount for a certain time.

Most of the other spells required a certain proficiency of these spells to be attained before the user can start training them.

She did notice that there were two gauges at the top right of her screen. One was her HP, which was obvious because it was the bar of life or death in SAO, and the other was MP, which was quite new to her, though, not new at the same time. Though it was a new concept in the virtual world, it was an age old concept in traditional games.

It's been a long day of questing, and Sachi was sitting down taking a break at a small NPC run restaurant towards the center plaza ofVimur, the capital city of the Undines. Opening up her menu, she checked a few things that have been bugging her. Out of paranoia, she checked to see where the log off button was for obvious reasons. To her relief, she pressed the log off button.

_Are you sure you want to log off? Yes/No?_

It was good to know there was a way to get out of the game if she needed to Sachi thought as she continued eating her sandwich. But she wasn't ready to log off just yet. Finding her way through the main menu, she found the social tab. Under the social tab, she pressed add friend. Causing her to frown a bit, Sachi had forgotten the usernames that Yata gave to her earlier, and she didn't want to go through the hassle of logging off and then logging back on because if she did, she would end up with a bad headache later on. The transfer of consciousness from the VR world to the real world (and vice versa) constantly will strain the brain quite so, and if done frequently enough, could cause some serious issues.

"C'mon Sachi, try to remember…" She muttered to herself as she closed her eyes and tried to remember. _Ca…Cassio!_ Her mind shot the name Cassio through her brain as she associated the name with Isawara. She had remembered it because she had read a play called _Othello_ by Shakespeare as one of the main characters. Inputting the name into the text box, she pressed send.

_Friend Request Sent!_

Sachi waited a few moments, and to her surprise a response came in a very timely matter. Attached to her friend response was an invitation to an instant chat session. Joining the session, the lazy voice of Isawara sounded.

"Ah, good for you join us" He sounded very unexcited and rather dull. Just as he was talking, a few more friend requests were sent to Sachi as she recognized the names. Ronku, Sumia, and Leslie the names where when Sachi matched the names to the people. Yata, Rika and Amaya respectively.

"Yo Sachi!" Yata's voice permeated, "I see no one's taken you name yet" he laughed

Sachi chuckled along with him, "Yea, thankfully"

"Hey, so do you want to join us now?" Rika asked.

"Oi oi, are you guys sure she'd be able to fight with us?" Isawara advised with a sort of caution.

"Ah don't worry so much Isawara, this isn't a death game!" Yata said unruly. It stung Sachi a bit because of the statement being so insensitive, but she shook it off, she knew he didn't do it on purpose. Little did Sachi know that the other four didn't know that she was an SAO survivor. She left them with the understanding that she had friends who died in SAO, but not the understanding that she herself fought in that world.

"Sure. I don't mind" Sachi replied shaking off the stinging pain in her heart.

"Great!" Yata replied as a party invitation had appeared on Sachi's screen.

"Um… where are you Sachi?" Amaya's timid voice quietly said.

She was in the middle of the Vimur Sachi replied.

"Oh, perfect… I'll set the waypoint to the Athos Mountains to the west. We'll meet there"

Opening up her map of the world of ALFheim Online, Sachi scanned for the party waypoint and her current location. "Eh?" The waypoint was past the marshes, and even past the mountains to the west. It was at the heart of the mountain ridge, bordering the Imp territory that overlapped with the central mountain ridge surrounding the world tree, Yggdrasil.

"It's going to take me forever to get there, even if I run" Sachi responded with surprise.

"Running? What are you talking about?" Yata asked unsure of whether or not Sachi was joking. "It only takes about 20 minutes when flying"

"Ah…" Sachi realized, or rather, forgot that flying was a feature in ALO. "H-how do you do that again?" she asked in a rather embarrassed tone.

Rika sighed as she took to answer this one. "Hold your hand out as if you were gripping a joystick, then pull it toward you to rise, push it away from you to descend, left or right to turn, push the button to accelerate, and release the button to slow down."

Doing as she was told, Sachi gasped with surprise as she began to hover above the ground. Looking behind her, she saw light blue, nearly transparent wings that were shaped like a fish's fin glimmered in the midday sun and reflected themselves on the water of the pool.

"Whoa…" The feeling of being weightless still gave her a ticklish feeling in her stomach.

"Go ahead and give it a few practice runs. We'll meet you at the rendezvous point in an hour. See ya there!" Yata said lastly before each of the others left the chat.

"Nn, see you there too" Sachi replied while looking about. She didn't think that it was safe to be flying around in an area like this for fear of hitting walls and other players, so she ventured out to the beginners marshes to do a few rounds of flight to get adjusted.

Keeping what Rika explained in mind, she accelerated a bit after beginning to hover. Sachi took it slow and steady as she tried to get adjusted to this new feature. After doing a few rounds of flight, Sachi decided that she could take it a bit faster and head towards her destination. As much as she wanted to stay lower to the ground, she knew she had to go higher if she wanted to achieve the maximum efficiency of flying.

"Eeek!" She squealed as her body as a whole suddenly jerked upward at an extremely fast rate. Hastily letting go of the acceleration button, she opened her eyes after her little outburst. "Waaah…." She gasped at the scenery around her. Her heart was racing, yet, she couldn't help but stare at the wonder that marveled in all around her.

"It's beautiful" It certainly was. Glaring to her right, she saw the city of Vimur, basking in the glory of the midday sun. The white stone of the castles that made up the city made it seem like it was snow. The blue water of the Biskar River sparkled like a diamond encrusted in the land.

Marveling over the great scenery of the world from her point of view, Sachi looked downward at the ground. Yelping, she closed her eyes again and clenched her mouth. Peeping once more at the ground, she took a deep breath, opened her eyes once more, and began to accelerate to do a few rounds of flight.

Finally when Sachi had felt comfortable enough to move on, she began to navigate her way to the way point that Amaya had dictated earlier. She did notice the drastic change in time it would take for her to get to her destination.

**ooo**

"Where is she?" Isawara complained as he scratched the ear of his wolf companion. Yata's small party was waiting for Sachi in the middle of a clearing in the mountain range. The quest they were going to undertake was a sort of arena quest. There was a dungeon to the west that required five people, and each person was to take on a boss level monster by themselves. The person chosen is random, and the dungeon will progressively get harder the farther they get.

"I'm sure she's on her way" Rika replied walking around with her arms crossed.

"I don't even know why you invited her. I think everyone here knows that a noob is just going to drag us down" Isawara replied in a foul manner.

"Aw c'mon Isawara, don't be like that" Yata replied chuckling, "Try to be nice to beginners for once."

"I told you to call me Cassio in game" Isawara grumbled twitching his brow.

"Do you hear that?" Amaya's quiet voice sounded as she looked about.

"Okay Amaya, not all of us have as great hearing as you do" Isawara replied sarcastically as everyone else focused their ears. There was a slight screaming, but not a scream desperate for help, but a rather, comical scream, as if something whimsical was going to happen.

Eventually, the scream got louder and louder until there was a loud crash in the tree nearby.

Going to investigate what the source was, the group was quite surprised as a player dropped from the tree.

"Ow…." Sachi muttered rubbing her head and fixing her hair. It seems that she needed to work on landing quite a bit more than anything else. Looking up at the four player looking down on her with slight confusion, "I'm here?" she asked nervously.

Yata started to laugh as he gave Sachi a hand up. "Nice timing Sachi" he said while patting her on the back.

"Glad you could join us" Rika replied.

"About time" Isawara said rather annoyed while planting his hands on his hips.

"Ahahaa, sorry" Sachi replied still rather nervous as she looked upon the members of her new party. "My wings gave out after a few minutes of flying"

"Oh they did? That means you've reached the flight timer limit. So you'll have to wait a bit to fly again." Yata replied pointing to the massive silvery tree off into the distance. "The main point of this game, or so called, Grand Quest, is to reach the top of the Yggdrasil. That way, the race that reaches there first will gain the power of unlimited flight by the Fairy King Oberon." He explained.

Sachi glared up at the tree with wonder as she listened. There seemed to be something special up at the top of the tree to her, but not Fairy King, but something else, something more… sentimental.

"But, we aren't too interested in unlimited flight. The ability to fly is already good enough for us" Rika added.

"That's a good way to think" Sachi replied smiling at their enthusiasm. It was much like the New Black Cats of the Full Moon mindset. Always happy, always cheery and enthusiastic, even with what little they have. After a bit of fun thought, she scanned her new party members.

Yata, or Ronku, was a blonde Sylph sword wielder. He bore a long slender katana that didn't curve as much as a realistic one. His figure was slim and agile. He wore a robe like cloak that covered his left arm and most of his chest. It reminded Sachi of Moto in terms of appearance. But he was wearing a traditional Japanese Kimono under his robe giving him a very oriental look.

Rika, or Sumia, took a very different look on her ALO avatar in contrast to Yata. Yata at least, in real life had emerald hair, which complimented his sylph appearance. Rika on the other hand had a very different look as a Salamander lancer. Her black braided hair became a short fiery red that hung loosely around her shoulders. She wore a light plate mail that protected the chest area with a pair of gauntlets to guard the arms, and plate boots to guard the legs. A skirt was accompanied to add a sort of feminine appearance while a belt hung to the side. She had a sort of light tank feel. Can manage to take some damage while dishing out damage at the same time.

Amaya's, or Leslie's appearance was what surprised Sachi the most. As a quiet Spriggan, her appearance was very contrast to her appearance and personality in the real world. With flowing black hair that weaved down to her elbows, her black body suit wrapped around her body giving her a very assassin like appearance. Around her waist was a belt that held an assortment of daggers and pouches that probably contained poison and other flavors of lethal drugs.

Last was Isawara, or Cassio. Isawara, as seen with his wolf companion, was a Cait Sith. His grey hair along with his boring facial expression gave him a very lone wolf feel. His greyish hood, which was pulled down added to this lonesome sense while his whole figure was very thinly clothed. He wore a long light grey cloak that had his white tail protruding out occasionally waving around. His white ears added to his wolf-like appearance. Strapped to his right arm was a gauntlet that had claws coming out of them. It seemed that he could retract the claws whenever he wanted.

They all looked so different in comparison to herself, but it wasn't a problem to the others.

"Okay! Now that we are all here, we should start heading towards the dungeon now" Yata said signaling everyone to begin to embark.

"It looks like you've took up magic Sachi" Rika noted while they were lightly scaling the mountains.

"Mmh, but I can fight with a sword too" Sachi replied.

"What are you more comfortable with?" Isawara asked from above.

"Well… sword I guess"

"Good, low level magic won't help you very much in this situation. The monsters here will have higher magic defense" Yata butted in.

"Eheh, I thought you said this was easy…" Sachi thought to herself.

"It's okay though, Sachi said she's played a VRMMORPG before, so she'll be fine" Rika said as she planted her feet firmly on the ground. They were in front of a cave in the mountains.

"Alright, we're here" Amaya muttered as she pulled two daggers out. They were quite wide and large daggers. Sachi was also amazed that she could dual wield, then again, Sachi remembered reading that Spriggans can dual wield most weapons while she was browsing through the characteristics of each race.

"Okay then, let's do some last minute prep" Yata replied checking his equipment for taking out a few potions. "Here, take these. You'll need them."

Sachi thanked him before needing to inquire, "What are we supposed to do for this quest?"

"You didn't tell her?" Rika mouthed to Yata in a rather discontented expression.

"Each of us will be chosen at random to fight a monster one on one. The last monster is the boss, and we get a reward at the end" Isawara interrupted to explain the terms of the quest to the newcomer of the party. "It is a test of true skill"

"Let's just hope that you go first" Yata said scratching his hair.

"Even if you don't win, at least try your best" Rika replied spinning her lance about.

"Will do" Sachi replied as she took a sword out of her inventory and equipped it.

**ooo**

The first enemy they encountered was a ghost knight. The silent figured stepped forward as its pale steel armor gleamed with a tint of blue from the light of the dungeon room. Pulling its rusted sword out from the sheath, it pointed towards Yata.

"Guess it wants me" Yata replied cockily as he pull held a firm grip on his katana. Normally, most players would pull their weapons out at an instant to get ready to fight, but Yata didn't. He stood there, legs bent in a battle position, with his hand gripping his sword, and eyes glued to the knight. Everyone else watched in anticipation of what would happen next.

Charging forward, the Ghost Knight swung its sword downward at Yata. Reacting in a timely manner, Yata strafed to the right. It swung to its right at Yata again, but he dodged it once more. Swing and doge, swing and doge, Sachi was quite stunned at how fast Yata was moving. He was like a leaf propelled by the fury of a hurricane.

Even throughout all this dodging, Yata hadn't even taken a single swing, nor has he even drawn his sword yet. Swinging downward out of rage, the Ghost Knight slammed down with its blade, sending sparks flying in contact with the stone floor.

"_He's wide open"_ Yata smirked to himself dodging promptly swinging to the side and forward towards the knight. Still holding his katana by the hilt, he held the sheath with his other hand and swung with his sheath at the torso of the knight. It was a nifty trick that Yata frequently used in which he nicknamed it "False Strike". A technique in which it seemed as if Yata was going to attack with his sword, but instead, attacks with the sheath of his sword instead to buffer enemies, then follows up with the "True Strike".

Momentarily stunned, the Ghost Knight stepped backwards unable to respond quickly enough to Yata's follow up strike. With one swift movement, his sword clicked, and with a single stroke of his arms, he sliced the Ghost Knight, causing it to stagger. Not showing any signs of slowing down, Yata began to unleash his own technique called Typhoon Slash; a 3 hit OSS that hacked down swiftly on both arms, and across the waist.

Dispersing into a cloud of pale white mist, the Ghost Knight left behind a bag of loot and the window for experience and «Yorudo» gain.

"Easy peasy!" Yata said clenching his fist, accomplished with his victory.

"Looks like you've been practicing your «OSS» Yata" Rika noted as Yata weighed the bag of loot up and down.

"Hehe, I'm quite proud of myself too" He replied giving a wry smile.

"It's about time you got one" Isawara replied shifting his claw, in and out.

"Mhm" Amaya nodded in agreement.

"Hey now, I don't play as much as you Isawara, or you Amaya" Yata replied sarcastically shrugging.

Amidst this, Sachi was staring at the conversation, "«OSS»?" She wondered aloud.

"«Original Sword Skill»" Rika filled her in, "It's kind of a unique skill to yourself. But they don't just apply to swords as their name implies, it can apply to any melee weapon."

"Hmm…" Sachi nodded understanding Rika's explanation. Sachi figured that it was sort of like «Unique Skills» in SAO.

"Alrighty, let's get a move on" Isawara snouted anxiously as he began moving forward without waiting for anyone else; his wolf was dutifully trailing behind him.

The next room was a dirt arena. Standing in the middle was a cyclops like monster with a massive spiked club as a weapon. It was your typical one eyed monster as described in most games and fantasy stories. Spurting out words of nonsense, it bashed its club on the ground a few times before slamming extremely hard, causing a very large tremor. At the very instant, a wall of stone spiked upwards dividing the party.

"Who…." Sachi was about to say while she looked around for who was with her behind the wall. Yata, Rika, Isawara were all behind the wall with her. That just left Amaya, who was on the other side; it was her turn to fight. As the wall descended back into the ground, the Spriggan assassin stepped forward with her two daggers in hand.

"_Is it me or…. Does she look completely calm?"_ Sachi wondered to herself examining Amaya's face. It was emotionless, she showed no signs of hesitation, or fear, just, nothing. Her face was plain, with no expressions on it whatsoever. She just stared at the ogre in complete confidence. It was as if Sachi was looking at a completely different person.

After a few more moments of standoff with the monster at hand, Amaya stepped forward once, and then began a full sprint towards her foe. Roaring blindly as it raised its club, the «Ogre» slammed downward on Amaya.

Sachi gasped as Amaya made no attempt to dodge the attack, and instead, took it head on, collapsing under the force of the club, her avatar bursting into fragments. "Amaya!" Sachi called out. She knew that death in this game wouldn't result in death in real life, but it was still a thing that she was concerned about. "We-we have to do something!"

"Shhh…" Rika replied holding her hand out to block Sachi from going forward, "Just watch. Do you see that small blue light floating around?" She pointed. The «Ogre» was triumphing over its "victory" over Amaya as a small pale light shimmered its way around through the back, leaving a light tail behind. Eventually, it floated behind the «Ogre's» head, and within the blink of an eye, there were two white streaks of light through its head followed by the sound of two blades slicing through air consecutively. There she was, in the air directly behind the «Ogre» was Amaya, in a crouched position with her arms crossed over her body, both daggers in hand.

"«Walk of the Assassin» and «Crescent Slash»" Rika said with a grin.

«Walk of the Assassin» was a special ability unique to «Spriggans» in that they had the ability to conceal themselves while deploying a decoy to distract enemies. It bought them time to escape or assassinate, just as what Amaya did. A streak of light would be in their place to signify to allies that they are in stealth, but otherwise, this ball of light was invisible to enemies. The downside was that the longer the user remained stealthed, the more and faster their mana would be depleted.

«Crescent Slash» was then, her «OSS», which was a two hit skill that slashed in the shape of a cross. Since it was only a two hit skill, Amaya frequently combo's this with «Walk of the Assassin» to aim for the head, in which there was a very high damage multiplier of 1.5x.

Unfortunately, it wasn't enough to take the «Ogre» down with two hits. Screeching with rage, the one eyed beast swung backwards smacking the real Amaya, causing her to fly to the side.

"Chsss" Amaya clicked her tongue as she rolled to the side to avoid the next downward swing. Promptly getting herself up, she strafed to the side to dodge one more swing before «Walk of the Assassin» took effect again. This time, Amaya backed from the boss as it destroyed the decoy. The «Ogre», as foolish and partially blind as it may be, was not gullible enough to fall for Amaya's strategy a second time and began charging towards the streak of light that was her. She left a trail of dust behind her as she moved.

"Crap…" Amaya muttered engaging in a full sprint to the side. Sheathing one dagger, she gripped one of the bottles that were latched onto her belt, and popped the cork off with her teeth. She began pouring the dark purple liquid onto one of her daggers. She planned on throwing it at the eye of the boss, but there was a problem, she had to get in front first, and that meant that she had to dodge attacks, which made it more difficult to throw. While in motion, accuracy when throwing or firing projectiles is reduced, thus, that is why archers usually stay stationary when assaulting, and that is why positioning is very important.

Forcing herself out of «Walk of the Assassin», she waited for the «Ogre» to turn towards her. The window of opportunity was so small that Amaya didn't even have enough time to activate «Blade Throw» let alone aim because the one eyed beast kept shaking its head around in rage and anger as it stomped towards Amaya, flailing the blunt weapon around with both arms. Focusing her sights on the boss, she tried her best to predict the movements and estimate where it'll strike.

Left, right, and left again, the club swung around until eventually, Amaya's prediction was partially right. What she was expecting was a sweep from the side so that she could jump upward and throw her dagger from there, but instead, it was another slam downward. Improvising from her original plan, Amaya shifted to the side, planting her feet firmly onto the ground and pulled the arm with her dagger in it back. Locking her wrist, she swung her arm forward, throwing the dagger, implanting itself into the eye of the «Ogre» with a flesh piercing sound. Howling out of pain and agony, the «Ogre» blindly flailed about in an attempt to hit Amaya in the process. The liquid that she had endowed her blade with was a blinding agent that she created herself. Taking advantage of this, Amaya rushed forward around the legs and towards the back. She didn't have enough mana for «Walk of the Assassin», neither did she need to use it. Pulling another dagger out from her belt, she held both of them backwards as she jumped upward, and jammed her blades into the back of the «Ogre», using them as sort of ice picks to help her climb up. It was a rough climb, especially with the "mountain" constantly flailing about, but Amaya managed to reach the top, sheathing one of her daggers again, she held the other with both hands, and thrust it has hard as she could into the head of the «Ogre». Showing no mercy whatsoever, she kept jamming her dagger into the virtual skull. Roaring and moaning, the boss began to drop over until finally, Amaya reached forward gripping the dagger that was planted in the eye, and pulled upward, effectively slicing the head in two parts. It was a good thing that the insides of avatars were simply a red filling rather than actual organs and blood. Most players would be completely turned away from the game if that were the case, but even the mere thought of it made Sachi a little bit sick as she covered her mouth.

Dropping to the ground in a limp manner, the avatar of the «Ogre» burst into shapes and colors as Amaya sighed, stepping lightly onto the floor.

Looking back at the group, "L-let's go?" she asked in her usual nervous manner.

This radical change in personality so suddenly completely took Sachi by surprise.

"She may seem extremely socially awkward on the outside" Rika said noticing Sachi's surprised expression, "But when she's on the battlefield, she's something completely different"

**ooo**

The quest was going by so far so good. Everyone seemed to be able to handle their battles in a good manner. The third engagement was a medieval bridge and at the end, there was a platform that led to a large door with torches on both sides. Bit by bit, the door lowered itself to reveal a three headed beast, the Cerberus. All three of the heads beckoned a bit before growling lowly while snarling out of hostility.

At that moment, Isawara's wolf growled and crouched down into a pouncing position. Barking a few times, Isawara understood that it was his turn to fight. "Alright boy, let's make this quick" Isawara said as the claw on his right hand unsheathed itself.

Rushing forward gnarling its teeth, two of the heads of the «Cerberus» snapped and bit as Isawara's wolf dodged and retaliated by swiping the vulnerable areas of the boss's face, especially the nose. It was a bit impressive to see a wolf, about one tenth the size of the «Cerberus», take it on at full force. Sachi noted that the special bond between man and his animal partner was very special, especially if they both felt the same emotions. The loner feel was prevalent in both Isawara and his companion.

While the three headed dog was distracted by Isawara's wolf, he took this window of time to attack from the back. Dragging his claw through the hind leg, he used it to scale up to the back of the dog. Not taking notice of the «Cait Sith» loner scaling its back, the «Cerberus» kept biting, clawing, and swiping at Isawara's wolf.

Eventually reaching the heads, Isawara gripped the chains hanging off the iron collar on the back of the three heads necks, and stuck his fingers in his mouth, blowing a high pitched whistle. Upon hearing that whistle, Isawara's wolf backed off slightly as the «Cerberus» stood there confused momentarily before it suddenly felt a powerful force pulling upward on its necks.

Isawara was pulling upward on the chains, restraining the «Cerberus», forcing it to reveal the weak portions of its neck. It tried to pull downward, but Isawara simply pulled harder in return. What made it easier to hang onto the chains was that he slid each blade of his claw into a hoop of a chain, thus making it much easier to apply force. Barking and snarling, the two side heads «Cerberus» tried to force Isawara off by biting at him while the middle head utilized the body and began to flail about. With a mutual understanding of command, Isawara's wolf thus charged forward, aiming for the neck of the leftmost head on Isawara's left. Its fangs began to glow as it bared them wildly. With a single streak of silver light, Isawara's wolf took a single bite at the boss's neck, making an incision deep enough for Isawara to pull back even harder to make the incision lager, thus nearly ripping the head off, leaving a mere strip of flesh to connect the neck and the rest of the body.

With one head down, and two left to go, Isawara slung up the chain and iron collar from the fallen head up and gripped it with his free hand. Pulling even harder to force the heads to go up higher, he slung the chain around the neck of the head on his right, pulling with exceedingly high amounts of force. He was strangling the head. Even though air wasn't a necessary component in «ALO», it still counted as a damaging factor if one was compromised of it. Pulling back even harder as his arms began trembling by apply so much force, the head he was strangling was barking and roaring until they eventually became squeals and moans. Another head was defeated.

All that was left was the middle head, and it was quite useless without the other two to support it. It couldn't attack Isawara because it couldn't reach back there, and it couldn't attack his wolf either, because it was being pulled back, unable to bite downward. Sliding his claw out of the chain and gripping it with his hand, he jammed his claw into the lower portion of the neck. This caused it to howl in pain, griping upward even further, giving Isawara the ability to take a grip on the collar. Stepping forward planting his foot halfway between the collar and the neck, his claw sheathed itself and he gripped the collar with both hands. With one single pull with his arms, and push with his foot, a loud crack was heard before the last head of the «Cerberus» limped still, with no neck bone supporting it up. Its HP bar diminished to 0 as it dispersed into bits.

Sachi was a bit uneasy by how brutal Isawara handled his battle, even more so than Amaya's. But still, despite her slight discomfort, she was impressed by how he and his companion knew each other well enough to work in unison in a fight.

"Why is this quest so easy?" Isawara complained as he yawned while scratching his companion on the head, "Good job Penner" Penner, his wolf companion, barked happily as it wagged its tail with its tongue sticking out in a pant.

"That was so cool Isawara" Amaya said timidly as she tried to avoid eye contact with anyone.

"_Okay_ Isawara, not everyone is as crafty, let alone brutal when fighting monsters as you" Rika replied sarcastically as Yata commented.

"Don't be so stuck up Rika" He chuckled

"Enough chit chatter" Isawara called out as he began moving forward, "We gotta get a move on. I've got some anime to watch later on, and I'm not putting that off"

"Wait! What about your homework?"

"I'll copy it during lunch"

"Like hell I'll lend you my homework!"

"Who said I'd get it from you?"

**ooo**

The fourth arena was different compared to the one with the «Ogre», as this one was more of a Greek styled amphitheater, a bit like the «Coliseum» back in «Aincrad» where Kirito dueled Heathcliff. The iron gate opened slowly, and the sound of the hoofs of a horse clanked with the solid sand of the arena. Half man, half steed, a «Centaur» trotted forward towards the party, standing there in the middle of the arena. Pulling a bow from its back, it readied and arrow and aimed upward towards the sky. Sachi wanted to do something out of fear that it might be aiming for someone directly, but Yata, just like Rika, held their arm out to keep her at bay.

Firing from a high angle, the arrow landed on the ground right in front of Rika. Everyone was a bit shocked as they all stared at Sachi. If Rika was going to go this round, then that leaves Sachi to fight the last boss alone.

"I told you not to let her tag along" Isawara whispered to Yata, "Now we won't be able to finish if she loses against the last boss."

"Don't worry about it Isawara! Besides, we couldn't even do this quest without her anyway. We won't lose anything major, and I set the teleport waypoint to the town nearby, so if we do fail, we can just start over" Yata replied raising his hand up to signal that it's okay.

"I told you to call me Cassio in game" Isawara replied rather annoyed.

"I sure hope you know what you're doing Yata" Amaya added in her quiet voice, "I don't like restarting a quest as much as Isawara"

"Cassio!"

"No matter, let's concentrate on the task at hand" Rika replied as she spun her spear about, locking it, pointing the tip at the centaur.

Holding its arm out as it threw the bow to the ground, the «Centaur» materialized a spear with a red cloth hanging about near the blade tip of the spear.

Walking slowly forth to meet her foe, Rika held the spear in the same position, her gaze fixed on the unmoving mythical beast. They stood, about 3 meters away from each other. Lowering her spear, she raised the tip out diagonally, and the «Centaur» did the same. There was a light clank when the tips of their spears met, it was a formality between the duel of the noble class of spear wielders.

Moving her spear back, she began walking past the «Centaur» and the «Centaur» doing the same. Walking past each other back to back they stood about 3 meters, the same distance, but this time, back to back.

Within a few moments, both Rika and the «Centaur» turned around, clashing their spears together. Pushing forward, each duelist tried to push the other back. Obviously, the «Centaur» won the first clash as Rika jumped backward to distance herself to think of a follow up attack.

In «ALO», each monster has a weak point in which, if exploited, can cause heavy damage to the monster. It was just like the case with Yata, the «Ghost Knights» weak points were the cracks between the armor at the shoulders and waist, Amaya's was the eye and the back of the head, and Isawara's was the neck. For Rika, she managed to squeeze in some ample time to use the skill «Insight» to scan the «Centaur». The red portions were the weak points, and the back legs were flashing red. Those were her priority.

The «Centaur» was quicker than Rika had anticipated, and within a speedy time frame of two seconds, Rika managed to dodge a downward swing from the red clothed spear by back stepping and shifting towards her right. Locking her spear between her hands, she lunged forward. The «Centaur» shifted the human portion of its body forward to narrowly dodge Rika's thrust. Using its torso as a sort of pivot, it swung its spear to the side.

Widening her eyes in surprise, Rika locked her wrists and quivered a bit as the shockwave from the «Centaurs» blow forcefully pushed her back. While she tried to recover, the «Centaur» charged forward sweeping around the side.

Ducking, Rika rolled forward diagonally, and spun around, hitting the back legs of the «Centaur» with the rod of her spear causing it to stumble a bit.

Swinging around at Rika, the «Centaur» scathed Rika's back as a dark red gash of split data caused her HP to drop.

"Oh! Too slow Rika" Yata commented from the small audience.

"That was my bad" Rika called out in reply guarding against the «Centaurs» attacks. Swinging downward, Rika held her spear horizontally to block it. The force from the boss's spear was causing Rika to tremble. Gritting her teeth, she pushed and jumped slightly back to avoid the spear as it collided with the solid sand on the ground.

Noticing that it would take the «Centaur» roughly a second to pull the spear out of the ground, Rika had an idea. Raising her foot up, she slammed downward on the stuck spear on the floor, jamming it deeper into the ground. Rika stepped forward and thrust her spear upward into the neck of the boss. With her glowing spear, Rika stabbed into the throat of the «Centaur», and raptured it by cutting to the side. Spinning around, Rika activated her «OSS», the «Burning Flower», a three hit skill that utilized magic to enhance the damaging capabilities of the weapon. Her lance burst into flames as she slashed in an X shape along the torso, and a final stab in the middle.

Standing there in the rain of data fragments, Rika fixed her hair and planted her spear in the ground. "I've really been getting sloppy" she complained.

**ooo**

Sachi was a bit anxious to fight her battle as the party walked through the black dungeon hallway.

"I'm a bit worried about this next battle" Rika whispered to Yata without the knowledge that Sachi's «Hearing» level reached that to which in enabled her to listen in on conversations. "Do you think she'll be okay with it?"

"I'm sure, don't worry!" Yata replied getting rather tired of people trying to talk him away from his "prank". "She seems like a nice enough person. I'm sure she'll understand."

Sachi didn't really understand what they were talking about as they walked before her, especially since she didn't really know what she would get angry at them about. So she rather kept the conversation at the back of her head for the moment. Sachi glanced at Amaya, who was walking beside her. When she noticed this, Amaya smiled sheepishly.

"A-are you scared?" She asked.

Shaking her head, Sachi replied, "Not really. I've seen much scarier things" Chuckling in her mind, Sachi thought about all the times in SAO that terrified her to death, especially the earlier days.

"Ah, that's g-good to hear" Amaya stammered for a moment as she looked forward even further. The entrance to the final room was approaching as the party hastened their pace. Their footsteps echoed through the dome like room as the ambient light lit up with a blue flame.

They stepped in, not seeing any sort of foe whatsoever. It was an empty room.

"Where is the boss?" Yata asked glancing around the room. Invisible monsters were quite unheard of in «ALO», so he dismissed that thought promptly.

"Will you be okay?" Rika asked still extensively concerned about the newcomer fighting such a difficult boss.

Sachi nodded in reply as she looked upward. A noise was being emitted that echoed through the room, which was easy for her to pick up, but not for everyone else. Just then, a massive silhouette jumped downward crashing through the ceiling, hitting the ground with a tremor of force that caused everyone except Sachi to cower back a bit.

"_Such confidence!?"_ Isawara muttered to himself keeping one eye open, while shielding his face with his arm. "_I hope she can back it up"_

Standing up promptly, Amaya gasped as she saw the boss that crashed down before them. A massive beast, with hoofed legs, and a bull like face. A ring between the nostrils, and large horns accompanied with a menacing halberd reinforced the sense of mythology.

It raised the giant axe and thrust the air in front of it, causing a blast of wind to blow everyone except Sachi back. It was its way of choosing the opponent.

"«The Minotaur»…" Rika said quickly rebounding herself to her knees "There's no way Yata!" She yelled out, "There's just no way!"

Yata said nothing as he ignored the «Salamander», and just stared at the «Undine» that he had taken so much interest into.

"Yata!" Amaya tried to catch his attention, but it didn't work.

The «Minotaur» bellowed with such loud force as it stared menacingly at Sachi, standing about three times her height.

Unmoved, Sachi stood there, glaring back. Taunted by her simply staring back, the «Minotaur» then charged forward, swinging downward with its halberd.

"Sachi!" Rika squealed while shutting her eyes.

"Waah!" Yata gasped with surprise at the event unfolding in front of him.

With the sound of clashing metal, Sachi, gripped the handle of her sword, pulled outward, and repelling the halberd of the boss within the blink of an eye.

Everyone was dumbfounded for a moment at what they had just witnessed.

"D-did sh-she just…. J-ust..." Amaya stammered, unable to finish her sentence.

"I-I think she did…" Rika replied wiping her glasses to see if her eyes were fooling her.

"Hmph…" Isawara just stood there, scanning the situation with much suspicion.

Not hesitating to follow up with a strike, Sachi rushed forward. "He's open!" she muttered under her breath as she charged up a «Diagonal», jumped upward, and unleashed it upon the chest of the beast. With the sword already by her hip area, she then proceeded to use a «Horizontal», and then a «Vertical» that flowed upward with a jump and a 180 degree turn. Once Sachi had hit the floor, she rolled forward to widen the gap between them.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the gleam of the halberd cutting straight towards her from the side. Bracing herself by holding her sword vertically to her side, she blocked it. The force was much stronger than she remembered as she slid to the side slightly.

"Ack, I've gotten sloppy" Sachi muttered to herself as she pushed away the halberd, and ducked to let it pass over her. It soon swung downward crashing into the floor as Sachi narrowly ducked to the left. She was about to jam her sword into the axe, but she had realized that she had not had her trademark weapon with her, the «Fragarach». Instead, she jumped upward on the pole of the halberd as it was stuck in the ground and ran towards the «Minotaur», engaging it while it was still open.

There was a gust of wind as Sachi felt the fist of the «Minotaur» sweep right towards her. Jumping to avoid it, she stabbed her sword into the wrist, and ran up the arm, leaving a red trail of damage behind her. Reaching the elbow, she planted her feet and pushed upward, spinning her sword to hold it in reverse, jumping towards the head.

"Haaaaa!" She called out while raising her sword above her head with both hands planted on it, slamming downward onto the forehead of the «Minotaur».

Beckoning wildly while shaking its head all about, Sachi used the hilt of her sword as a sort of lifeline to staying at her current position. Each second that she stayed there with her sword planted, the more the HP of the «Minotaur» trickled down. Sachi wanted to keep it that way, but unfortunately, she suddenly felt something gripping tightly around her foot, and she was suddenly jerked to the side and sent flying.

Steaming out of its nostrils, the «Minotaur» pulled the sword out of its head and brandished its axe again. Windmilling to get herself back to her feet, she looked around for where the «Minotaur» threw her sword. The shiny metallic weapon gleamed in the area next to the left leg.

Quickly devising a plan, she ran towards the position of her sword. Ducking to avoid another horizontal swing, she yelped as she felt the slight discomfort of an axe digging into her side. "_Too soon!_" she thought to herself as she subconsciously glanced at her HP bar. To her slight surprise, it dropped about 20 percent, which, if she were still in SAO, would set most players into a panic.

Rubbing the red spike in her side, Sachi refocused. Cutting to her right, she saw another horizontal swing incoming and jumped forward, towards her sword, rolling to avoid the swing altogether. Hastily reaching for her sword as she crawled on her knees, she gashed the leg, causing the beast to drop down to the side. Spinning to her right, she gashed the chest again horizontally, before delivering the final blow with two diagonal slashes along the chest.

Though it seemed very anti-climactic in words, the actual scene amazed the entire party as Sachi sheathed her sword again, sighing out of relief.

"Sachi!" Rika called out speechlessly as the party flocked around her, inquiring her about her unusual skill in VRMMORPG's. "What the hell was that?!"

"I-I d-didn't know that S-Sachi-san was so skilled…." Amaya said in her usually studdering tone.

"That must have been the cooling thing that I have ever seen in my life here" Yata overpraised as his eyes gleamed with delight. "I knew you'd be perfect"

Isawara, who was still silent throughout this whole gathering as he stared suspiciously at Sachi.

"Aww..c'mon, it wasn't that great" Sachi replied while scratching the back of her head out of slight embarrassment.

"Cut the crap!" Isawara called out in a harsh accusation.

Everyone was quite stunned by what Isawara had just said, as, it wasn't normal for him to lash out at people like that, especially new friends.

"I-Isawara!" Amaya replied rather unsettled by his sudden change of mood.

"What are you saying?!" Rika replied in her own rash way as she slapped him on the back of the head.

"Ow!" He replied rubbing where she slapped, "Look, she's new to the whole world of «ALO» right? Then there's no way that she'd be so skilled like that from just a few hours of playing."

"But Sachi said she played a «VRMMORPG» before this right Sachi?" Yata asked. Sachi nodded in return.

"There you have it"

"Look at all the other VRMMORPG's out there on the market right now, are any of them similar to this?" Isawara continued to argue his case.

He caught Rika by surprise. He had a point. Most of the other VRMMORPG's out on the market these days usually had different gameplay mechanics compared to ALO, they used such things such as a real time sword fighting system which did not incorporate swords skills and relied solely on user skill and cunning. Other VROMMORPG's were shooters, such as «Gun Gale Online», which was currently inaccessible to the Japanese, as the main servers were hosted in America. With the exception of «SAO» which few people knew employed the same mechanics as «ALO», no other recognizable virtual reality game used the same things ALO did, and that was what ticked Isawara off in the first place.

"Couldn't she just be naturally talented?" Yata still tried to defend Sachi.

Isawara simply shook his head, "With the amount of hits that she dealt to the boss over there, it would be impossible knowing her current skill levels. Look, this boss has a recommended skill level of around 100, and even with that, it still all depends on the user. But it only took Sachi about a handful of the hits needed to take the HP of this boss down. From what I've seen, her sword mastery would have to at least be around the 600 mark if I'm not mistaken. The only possible way that would occur is if she was hacking." He explained giving a rather cold stare at Sachi.

"Hacking…?"

Sachi was still a bit stunned by the sudden accusation, but then again, she half expected something like this to occur.

"Either she hacked to upgrade her weapon to insane amounts, or she hacked her skill levels" Isawara added, "I'm going with the second one because the first would be too obvious." Raising his hand and pointing at Sachi, "Do you have anything to say for yourself?"

"Ah…" Sachi replied trying to think of a good way to tell her defense, "I'm not a hacker."

"Prove it" Isawara replied not very amused.

"Isawara! Stop accusing her like that!" Rika demanded as she got rather angry.

"Is this true Sachi?" Amaya asked rather curiously, it was as if the word hacker caught her attention for some unknown reason.

"You're not lying are you Sachi? I trust you and all, but it would be bad if you were and we didn't know" Yata said.

"I'm not lying" Sachi replied feeling cornered, "I already maxed the skills before ALO!" she blurted out trying desperately to defend herself.

"Before…ALO?" Yata asked rather confusedly.

"Erm… what are you talking about?" Rika asked,

"You know…" Sachi replied in a confused tone also, "Wait… don't you know?"

"K-know a-about what?"

"I didn't tell you guys…?" Sachi whispered to herself as the confusion cleared up in her head. All this time, she had thought that Yata and the rest knew she was an SAO survivor, but it seems that Sachi didn't make herself clear before.

"If you have something to say, hurry up and say it" Isawara replied impatiently as Rika smacked him on the back of the head again.

"I-I thought you guys knew… but… if you guys didn't…" Sachi began to speak again before taking a deep breath, "I was in SAO" She managed to say it, and she didn't know what their reactions would be.

They were actually quite shocked to hear this.

"S-SAO..?" Amaya stammered even more so than her usual self. "Y-you mean y-you were stuck in th-that death g-g-game?"

Sachi nodded in reply.

"Wait wait… I thought you said your friends, the old computer research club members, died in SAO. So that means… that… you saw… them….." Rika couldn't finish her sentence, but Sachi nodded because she knew what Rika was going to say.

"Oh, oh my… I'm sorry" Rika said rather guilt stricken.

Sachi shook her head, "No, it's oaky"

Yata was silent before all this, not saying a word, as something else was preoccupying his mind.

"I still don't believe you" Isawara muttered crossing his arms.

"Isawara!"

"What? How does playing SAO somehow magically transfer your skills from there to here? It makes no sense" He replied still defending his accusation.

Sachi puffed her cheeks a bit at the boy's persistence, "I was just as surprised as you are now when I found out" She shrugged, "But honestly, I still don't know how or why these ended up here."

"ALO uses the same game engine as SAO" Yata said to himself for everyone to hear.

"Wh-what?" Everyone took a great interest into what Yata said.

"ALO and SAO, they both use the same game engines. To be more specific, RECTO Progress bought Argus out after the SAO incident, and they used the technology they acquired to create ALO." Yata explained.

"Wait, Yata, how do you know all this?" Rika asked.

"M-my brother…died in SAO too" He replied remorsefully, but shook it off a few moments after, "Anyway, Sachi's character data from SAO might have transferred into ALO instead because it was still stored onto the main database. But I'm guessing only the skills stayed, judging from your equipment."

"That m-makes sense" Amaya said thinking about it for a moment.

"That satisfy you enough Isawara?" Rika inquired still grumpy about his rudeness.

Crossing his arms as he frowned a bit about being defeated, "Yea I guess…."

"What else do you say?" Rika elbowed him in the side.

"Ack, sorry… for being so rude" He looked away, with a sour expression on his face when he said that.

"Apology accepted" Sachi replied a slight chuckle at the antics of the group.

"Ugh…" Rika rolled her eyes in slight annoyance.

"Well, I think I should log off now. I'm getting rather hungry." Sachi changed the tone of the chat as she opened up her menu.

"Err…. You can't log off here" Yata brought that to Sachi attention.

"You can't?"

"Well, it's not so much that you can't, it's just that it's probably not the best idea to log off here. You know how there's PKing in this game right? Well, even when you log out of the game, your avatar will remain where it is now; you'll be vulnerable to a PK and they will loot your items and such. It'd be best to log off in town or in safe zones." Rika cautioned.

**ooo**

There was a town on the western side of the mountain ridge, in neutral territory. With the party landing in the middle of the plaza, they bade farewell.

"Do you guys want to grab a bite or something?" Yata asked

Rika shook her head, "No sorry, it's getting a bit late, and I have to finish my homework"

"Yea, I have some anime to watch." Isawara added.

"Hey! What about your homework? I'm not letting you copy of me!" The red haired girl replied

"I can just copy it from Amaya, right Amaya?"

"U-uh… s-sure Isawara!" Amaya began blushing nervously.

"Er… okay then…" Yata refrained from entering the quarrel they had brought forth.

"Ahem, anyway, today was fun. Nice fighting Sachi" Rika said lastly patting Sachi on the back before logging off.

"I-I have to g-go too" Amaya replied as she waved and logged off also.

Not saying a word, Isawara stared at Sachi for a moment before nodding in acknowledgement. He too logged off afterward.

It was just Yata left as Sachi asked, "You aren't going to log off?"

"Actually, I have something to ask you Sachi" Yata said before facing her, "Did….did you meet my brother?"

"Your brother?" Sachi murmured as she tried to think, "I-I'm not…."

"His name was Takenao!" Yata interrupted.

"_That name…!"_ Something clicked in Sachi's mind as the voice rang in her head again, _"Ah, I'll try my best"_ His face flashed in her mind, those last moments when he was in her arms, too slow to save him. "Takenao…." Sachi whispered in silent grief as she dropped to her knees.

"You knew him…?"

Sachi shook her head sadly, "Not personally. He…he died in my arms…. I tried…. But I was so irresponsible…" She cupped her face in her hands, on the verge of crying. " I couldn't… I was too slow!"

Yata stood there for a moment, unable to say a word, as he was too pent up with a mix of emotions. Finally, he was able to breathe outward, with a few tears rolling down his cheeks.

"I remember now…" Sachi muttered loud enough for him to hear as she opened up her inventory, still trying to relieve herself of her guilty thoughts. She took out a crystal like object, almost the exact same thing as the message she left for Kirito around a year and a half before. "He gave me this…"

Holding his hands out to accept the message of his older brother, Yata stared at it with blank eyes. "I think I know what he's going to say…" He said smiling lightly at Sachi.

**ooo**

There was a bright flash of light before the faint outlines of Sachi's room began to come to view. Sliding her heavy «Nervegear» off her head, Sachi got up from her bed and stretched out contently. Sighing, she embarked out of her room and down the stairs, only to smell the scent of dinner being made. Entering the kitchen, she saw her mother and step-father working on dinner together.

"Hi mom, hi Tomichii-san" She said while opening the fridge to get a bottle of water. The time was around 7:00.

"Good evening Sachi" Eri replied as she glanced slightly back to see her daughter before turning her attention back to the stove.

"Dad" Tomiichi replied like usual before changing the topic, "So did you have fun in the virtual world?" he half joked as he carried a few side dishes out to the table.

"Mmm" Sachi nodded as she helped him.

"Don't get too comfortable with the VR games Sachi" Eri added as she carried the pot over to the table, "You start school next week, remember?"

"Yea yea mom, I didn't forget" Sachi replied as she sat down and served three bowls of rice.

"Do you remember your subjects? Or was two years of gaming not enough for you?" Tomiichi joked around

"Ah, of course I remember my subjects" Sachi pouted crossing her arms, "At least the important ones" She smiled goofily.

Both Eri and Tomiichi laughed along with Sachi as they enjoyed a close family dinner together. But little to both of their knowledge, there was something terrible aching in Tomiichi's heart that he couldn't shake away.

**ooo**

It was around 8:00 when they finished dinner and washed all the dishes. Sachi decided to shower to refresh herself before a good night's sleep. Stepping down the stairs quietly as she dried her hair, she heard the sound of crying that was coming from the living room. Sitting down on the stair and peeking through the rails, she saw Tomiichi, hunched over, on the couch, trembling with a low murmur of sobs and gags.

"What's wrong Tomi-chan?" Eri asked as she sat down on the couch next to him. She squeezed his shoulder in comfort.

"Egh….sorry hun" Tomiichi replied as he took his glasses off to wipe his tears, "I'm sorry. It's just that…Sachi…I don't, I don't know what to do! What does she want?! What can I do to earn her love?" he begged as he began crying again. "All I want her to do is call me dad. That's always been my lifelong dream"

"Shhh, shhh honey. It's a big change for her. She does love you, but you just have to give her time" Eri comforted even more as she hugged him even tighter. After a few moments of silent crying, Tomiichi began to speak again.

"Eri, you know what happened to my wife before you right?" He asked.

"You told me she died from a car accident twelve years ago"

"Yes, she did die" Tomiichi said as he took his glasses off again. Rubbing his face a few times, "But not from a car accident. I lied to you." I sounded as if he were choking on his own words, "I wanted, to keep this a secret from you because I didn't want you to pity me, but, but the sadness. It's eating me from the inside, and I have no one else to turn to except you Eri."  
"What…? What?" Eri replied as she kissed Tomiichi on the head, "Tell me, I'm right here"

Sitting there with a pale face, and troubled eyes that were red and puffy, his lips quivered before he could speak again. His voice was rasp, as if it were choking him just to speak.

"S-she died, because…. She was murdered. By her brother…"

**ooo**

_It had been a long day at work, but that was fine I wondered to myself as I was driving through the streets home. All I could think about was a nice hot meal, and a nice warm bed with the person I love, and our future daughter. It was an invigorating thought that made me smile when it popped up into my mind as I turned the corner. _

"_Huuu, huun huuuu" I hummed a lively tune, but it soon shallowed out to a shrill silence as I pulled up into my driveway. There was something terribly wrong I repeated to myself over and over again as I rushed out of my car. The door was open, the lights were off, and there was a feeling of terror in my heart. _

"_Shiyo! Shiyo!" I desperately called out my wife's name as I turned the lights on in every room. Where was she?! I was worried to death, I was scared, and my mind was full of fear driven thoughts that all led to the same thing until eventually, everything in my life began to swirl down into an endless pit of agony and sorrow. _

_I dropped to my knees next to her limp body, surrounded by a pool of her own blood. I howled out at the top of my lungs._

_The doctors said that she had died from blood loss about an hour before I got home. They told me that the fetus also died. What a shame. The baby didn't even have a chance, a chance to experience what I now dreaded to keep on experiencing: life. An investigation was conducted and they ruled that she was murdered by her own brother, for reasons that I eventually forgot due to my trauma. But I couldn't believe it, it was like a nightmare that I would never wake up from. The sound of a young girl that looked up to me and called me daddy, would never reach my ears. _

_From that day, I couldn't eat, I couldn't sleep, I couldn't think. It was as if that voice kept haunting my shattered dreams, taunting me from beyond the grave. I just wished, for that one word to be muttered…..I just wished for it to all end._

_**ooo**_

Sachi felt sick. Her stomach hurt, as if she were going to vomit, and her throat was about to burst as she gagged. Holding back the tears and trying hard not to be heard, she ran to her room and shut the door quietly behind her as she sank down onto her bed, crying her eyes out. She felt so guilty, as if she were the worst kind of person alive. "I was so selfish…" To think that Tomiichi went through so much pain just to hear one little word. It made her hate herself. Lying there in a fetal position, hugging her knees, the voice kept whispering in her mind. The voice of guilt, it ate her alive. There, she knew when she was ready to call Tomiichi dad.

She didn't know how long she had been crying there, but eventually, her whimpering turned into silent breathing as she cried herself to sleep.

**A/N:** **Long time no update! Sorry guys, I've been writing very sparingly, usually whenever I can during class lectures that I find boring, or during my English period (We do nothing!) I've been very busy with projects as senior year of high school winds down to an end. Lots of fighting this chapter, though, with the sheer length, I think I rushed through the part with Yata's brother and Tomiichi's terrible past very much so, but otherwise, it's down to the point. **

**Anyway, a few more surprises on the way during the course of the next few chapters, and hopefully I find the time and inspiration to write faster now because I know you guys are anticipating updates with this tory ^^.**

**Welp, don't forget to drop a review down below, and I'll see you guys next time!**


	6. Chapter 5 - The Echo of a Dream

Chapter 5 – Echo of a Dream

Sachi opened her eyes to the bright sun that beamed through her room. She sat up, wiping the dry tears from her cheeks as she remembered the terrible revelation about Tomiichi-san the night before. "Tomi-…" she paused before shutting her mouth, "Dad…."

After freshening up through a warm shower, Sachi walked slowly down the stairs, ready to greet Tomiichi the way he always deserved. "Morning mom, morning da…." She began to say as she entered the kitchen. To her surprise, it was only her mother sitting down for breakfast.

"Oh, good morning dear" Eri said as she scooped up a bowl of rice for her daughter.

"Good morning…" Sachi yawned a she sat down and began to eat. "Where's dad?"

Eri smiled gently when Sachi said dad, and she leaned over to kiss her daughter on the head in a pleasantly surprised manner, "He has a meeting right now, so he left early" she replied, getting up to wash the dishes.

Rubbing the area where her mother kissed her, Sachi wondered what was up as she dug into her rice. "Meeting huh…." She muttered under her breath a little disappointed.

**ooo**

"I made you some lunch and left it in the fridge. I'll be home by 6" Eri said as Sachi accompanied her to the door.

"Okay" Sachi replied her mom kissed her on the head again before walking towards her car. "Have fun at work okay mom?"

Eri chuckled in reply, "Don't worry, I always do" she said waving before turning the ignition on and rearing out waving to Sachi. "And don't forget to get ready for school on Monday!"

"I will!" Sachi called out in return as she smiled. Once her mother drove out of sight, she shut the door behind her and sighed gladly. Since she didn't really have anything to do for the rest of this lazy Thursday, she decided to log onto ALO.

Sitting there on her bed, she stared at the «NerveGear» sitting on her lap. The visor stared back at her as it cast her reflection. A flashback of Kayaba rushed into her head and out for a split second. Those last words he spoke to her, she watched his lips move. It was just like the time she tried to say last words to Kirito before she nearly died; and just like Kirito, she wanted to know what those last words were.

Clearing her mind for a moment, she slid the helmet over her head and transferred her consciousness.

**ooo**

Fading in from the corners of her sight where the bleak beige walls of her inn room as she blinked to get adjusted to her sight. Pondering about what to do for a moment, she opened up her inventory just to take a peek at anything she still might have left over from SAO. Something caught her attention, there was an obscure amount of «Yorudo», (The currency of «ALO»), just sitting there in her inventory. Sachi wasn't sure whether or not she might have won some sort of lottery or something, but this was an exceedingly high amount of money. She pondered over it, and figured that it might have been left over from «SAO», as the two games were connected anyway.

From there, she decided to venture out into town. Silly her, she didn't even know the name of the place she was staying in until now, Sesalan it was called. It was a neutral city in which it was the entrance to the only passage through the mountain ridge to the north. This led into «Spriggan» territory, which could prove invaluable in case the time needs it to be; since flying through the ridge would prove difficult because of the time limit.

Seeing the sites of the town, Sachi took notice of all the other players' equipment, then took a look at her plain self. Grumbling to herself about her plain appearance, she stumbled upon the market board and decided to look for some new equipment. This was a new feature that wasn't in «SAO», but Sachi was very familiar with it. Players sell their equipment through a market board, or auction board system, which should be self-explanatory.

There were a variety of tabs and search filters that would help narrow down equipment searches. Opening the drop box, Sachi searched for mana regeneration as an equipment attribute. Since she was going to main as a mage, she could at least get some equipment that will help that cause. Besides, she always favors mana regeneration above everything. After a few minutes of searching, she stumbled upon an equipment set that met her taste. «Mana Drifter» the set was called. Using her above average math skills, she totaled up the cost of the entire set, which took up about 90% of the money she had right now. Shrugging and shaking off her money conservative side, Sachi pressed the buy selected items button.

The appearance was actually very nice. It consisted of a dark blue wizard like hat with a large visor that cast a hermit like shadow in her eyes. A light brown cloak with a slit down the middle that covered her shoulders down to her waist, which concealed her top. Her top consisted of a light blue blouse that revealed the upper parts of her shoulders, sleeves stopping down at the elbows, and extended down like a Chinese style dress down to her knees. She wore a dark teal skirt that was rather loose and didn't wrap like what she was used to. White socks and light blue loafers that matched her shirt covered her legs while white gloves that wrapped over the flesh between her thumb and index finger.

A mage always needed a staff, or a wand of some sort. Sachi's staff was called a «Mana Scepter». The body of the staff was metallic and smooth. The top of the staff consisted of intricate curves that intertwined, shaping into a sort of claw like shape. The bottom was very pointed and could be used for melee defense.

The thing that Sachi liked about «ALO» was that most equipment and armor did not have any particular level requirement, or stat requirement to equip. If one had it, they could equip it. They could have the most powerful equipment in the game, but can be out played by a player with regular equipment. What Sachi liked was that it primarily a skill based game. Rising through the ranks of combat relied upon the player's skill levels and their inherent tactic and cunning.

Satisfied with her appearance, and stat gain, she quickly moved her «One-Handed Sword Mastery» and exchanged it with «Pole Arm Mastery», which was sitting in her reserve skill slots. She hadn't worked with a pole arm in a year and a half since that day in June where her story began, but she never lost the feel for one.

Twirling her staff around, with her knew equipment gleaming with the sun, Sachi decided to venture back to «Vimur». On her way to the front entrance of the town, she saw a familiar face. The light curly teal hair made her remember the person, but not his name. He was chatting with a few other players at the gates of town before they gave him a satchel and took flight to depart from him. Adding it to his inventory, he closed his menu and looked up. Seeing a familiar face, he held his hand up to greet Sachi. "Hey Sachi!" he called out as Sachi went up to say hello.

"Hey…ummm…." Sachi rubbed the brim of her hat trying to remember his name.

"Wesson" Wesson replied with a chuckle.

"Ah! Sorry, we just met yesterday. Forgetful me…" Sachi said.

Wesson chuckled again with a grin, "That's okay." Pausing for a moment, he asked, "I was just on my way back to «Vimur», are you heading that way too?"

Sachi nodded in reply as Wesson signaled his hand for her to come. Going through the normal flying protocol, Sachi followed.

As he looked at her, Wesson noticed the complete change in appearance from when he saw Sachi yesterday, "I hope it's not rude to ask, but where'd you get those clothes?"

Not wanting to reveal the fact that she started off with a large load of money, Sachi lied, "Well, a friend of mine gave it to me."

"Ah" Wesson nodded his head at slight suspicion, but shook it off because it was very miniscule. Getting back to the conversation, he asked, "So how do you like «ALO» so far?"

"I love it" Sachi replied smiling at Wesson brightly, "I feel very comfortable, even with these new features"

"What was that?" Wesson asked about that last portion. He couldn't hear her because of a blast of wind.

"Nothing" Sachi replied as she turned back forward to concentrate of flying. They had already passed the mountain ridge and were above the forest past the marshes. "Wait, Wesson…" Sachi asked as she noticed.

"Yes?" He replied with a good natured smile.

"Didn't you have other players with you yesterday?"

"Oh," He paused as he stopped flying and floated in place, "The head of my escort team has class today." He chuckled wryly and rubbed the back of his head, "So they aren't logged on"

"What about you?"

"I'm on exam vacation"

"Escort team? You mean party?" Sachi asked.

"No, they're kind of like my body guards" Wesson replied fixing his circlet.

"Body guards? For what?"

Slightly tilting his head in confusion, "What do you mean for what?" he asked.

"People don't usually need body guards unless they're high ranking right?" Sachi said flexing her hand from gripping the flight joystick.

"Ohh, you don't know…" Wesson was standing up straight and planting his arm across his chest, bowing slightly. "I am Wesson, the Lord of the Undines"

"L-lord?!" Sachi panicked for a moment before she bowed herself. "I-I'm sorry! Pleased to meet you, I'm Sachi!" she said in a still shocked tone.

"Hahaha" Wesson chuckled as he moved forward and placed a hand on Sachi's shoulder, "No need to be so formal. In the real world, I'm just a regular college student"

Looking up and smiling nervously, Sachi replied, "Ah… okay" Fixing her wizards hat again, she added, "I completely forgot that we were in the virtual world" she laughed it off tapping her brow.

"Yea, often times I forget that" Wesson said weaving his fingers through his curly light blue hair, "But I guess it's only natural to be in a completely different w-"

"Get down!" Sachi called out as, out of the corner of her eye, a streak of dark matter torpedoed toward the two. Quickly accelerating herself forward to push him out of the way, Sachi scanned in the direction the bolt of magic came from.

Wesson was slightly surprised by Sachi's quick reaction time, especially with his assumption that she was a very new player, "A-an attack?!" he muttered as he recomposed himself, drawing his sword. "Black magic…«Spriggans»! Sachi, quick! We need to get to ground, we're wide open in the air."

Heeding his suggestion, Sachi quickly descended to the ground.

"We need to proceed with caution. We're pretty far from «Vimur», but we can lose them in the forest while our wings recharge and fly at full speed back."

Sprinting at full speed, the pair trudged through the thick roots and bushes, trying to escape the present danger that was perusing them.

"Hang in there ooff!" Wesson began to say before his foot got lodged between an uplifted root, causing him to trip.

Stopping a distance away from him to give him a hand, Sachi saw the small reflection of metal, with only a second to respond, "Stay down!" she called out to Wesson. With a sharp piercing sound, a crude throwing knife sliced through a strand of hair on Wesson's head as he ducked as low as possible, and was planted deep into the tree next to him.

Rushing towards him to help him up, Sachi looked around her. A few players, 5 to be exact, were creeping up slowly around them. All of them garbed in black just like Amaya.

"«Spriggans»…" Wesson muttered as he stayed cautious, "What business do you have in «Undine» territory?" he demanded, but in a polite-ish manner, to conform with his personality.

"Isn't that obvious?" One of the «Spriggan» assassins asked rhetorically, even though he knew that Wesson and Sachi wouldn't be able to guess correct on the first try.

"Wh-what do you…." Wesson murmured.

"Graaaahhh!" Another «Spriggan» leaped from behind, taking Wesson by complete surprise as he had no time to react. Before the black garbed elf had a chance to take a swing at the «Undine» leader with his short sword, he felt a sudden jolt applied to his neck as he looked to his side.

The «Undine» mage had jabbed her staff right at his neck, causing it to get caught in between the head of her staff. Pulling her staff over and around her head, she smashed the «Spriggan» head first onto the ground behind her. Shortly following that, she swung forward, slightly tilting her staff to release the grip her staff had on the «Spriggans» neck, causing him to fly with high speed into a tree. At the instance he hit the tree, his body dispersed into a black mist, only leaving behind a burning black orb on the ground.

"Are you hurt?" Sachi asked as she hastily helped Wesson up while keeping a close eye on the «Spriggans» surrounding them.

"I'm fine "Wesson replied as the «Spriggan» that had spoken first began charging towards them. Jumping upward with his sword raised, Sachi reacted timely and an unusually large frame in which she could strike. Swiping her staff across his chest, his entire body burst into black mist. This was not the player kill effect, Sachi knew that as her eyes widened with the realization. "_A decoy?!"_ Quickly looking to her sides, the other «Spriggans» that were present were no long there.

"«Walk of the Assassin»!" Wesson exclaimed as both he and Sachi huddled closer together in search of their invisible foes. "What do we do?!" the «Undine» leader asked in slight panic.

"I don't…." Sachi began to say as she thought quickly. "_How could we take down invisible enemies?" _She eventually ran out of options and almost resorted to just simply flailing their weapons around in an attempt to land a hit until something chimed in her ears. It was a soft thud, the sound of a footstep. "_That's right!" _

"Shhhh…." She turned to Wesson with a finger over her lips to signify to stay quite. Focusing her «Hearing» even further, Sachi used the echo from that footstep to discern its origin, which was approaching from the direction behind her. "_Another one" _She muttered to herself, spinning around, swinging her staff in the location where she predicted the enemy would be. Her guess was right as a female «Spriggan» stumbled by a blow to the head. Swinging in the opposite direction, Sachi struck her in the head again before jabbing at the torso twice, causing the finishing blow.

Amidst the current spar, another set of footsteps mobilized behind Sachi as the sound of a dagger being swiped through the air whirred in her ears. Though reacting extremely quickly, she was a fraction of a second late, causing the metal to gash through her upper arm. At that same instant, a strange occurrence presented itself as Sachi's staff disappeared into small bits of data.

Gasping with surprise, Sachi took a step backward while evading the lunges of the now exposed third «Spriggan». He tried to slash to the right across Sachi's torso. Holding her right arm out forcefully, she chopped at his wrist. This was a technique that Moto had taught her back in SAO when disarming a foe wielding a light weapon such as a dagger.

With her opponent disarmed, Sachi managed to kick him in the shin, and forcefully punch him in the stomach before calling out to Wesson, "Finish him!"

Nervously reacting, Wesson took a grip of his sword with both his hands, and lunged forward with his eyes shut. Fortunately, his stab was accurate and managed to finish off the «Spriggan». As the burning black orb lay on the ground in front of him, Wesson opened his eyes and began laughing out of accomplishment.

"Don't get too comfortable" Sachi said as she hastily opened up her inventory to take out her sword. "What happened to my staff?" she asked. It sat there in her inventory with a big red X crossed on it.

Recomposing himself from his small triumph, Wesson replied, "Your staff's been disarmed. It's a «Spriggan» ability that prevents the use of that weapon for a couple of minutes."

Nodding in reply as her sheathed sword materialized by her waist, Sachi gripped the handle tightly, listening intently for the remaining two «Spriggans». Another thud was heard to her right as Sachi instantly pulled her sword out and striking at the same time. In the motion of a blur, a red slash was followed by black mist as the «Spriggan» muttered,

"How…?" Before his voice was drowned out.

At the sound of another footstep, Sachi lashed behind her, meeting blade to blade with the last remaining «Spriggan». Sparks flew as he backed up, maintaining his distance from Sachi.

"I underestimated you" He said to Sachi.

"You want some more?" Sachi taunted as she tightened the grip on her sword.

The «Spriggan» shook his head as he sheathed his blade. "No point in fighting anymore. I don't pick I battles I can't win" He replied turning his back towards them, and walked away.

As soon as the last signs of the «Spriggan» was gone, Wesson sighed out of intense relief. "Whew… that was too close!?" he exclaimed as he trotted towards the black ball of mist of his kill. "What are «Spriggans» doing here anyway?"

"They were here yesterday as well. I heard them on my way here. They weren't doing anything, so I figured that they were harmless." Sachi explained, slightly regretfully.

"An assassination party….. Maybe it was pre-planned?" Wesson figured as he rubbed his chin. It would have been very bad if they managed to kill me" He added as he began sifting through the spoils of war. In the world of «ALO», looting after the defeat of an enemy of a warring race was common, as to promote a player killing environment.

"What would happen if they did?" Sachi asked as she did the same as Wesson did, though, still unfamiliar with this new concept of looting.

"Well, as the head of the «Undines», if I get taken down, the entire race would be under chaos. The «Spriggans» would have gotten an amazing bonus. First off, they'll get 30% of my funds stored, and for ten days, «Undine» territory would be occupied. That way, the «Spriggans» can set whatever taxes they want and take it for their own. Trust me, that's a lot of money. Take the «Salamanders» for example. They've become the strongest nation because they killed the first «Sylph» lord. Normally, I shouldn't be roaming around in outlying territories like these, but I had an errand to run around here, so it was inevitable."

"Is that so…" Sachi murmured as she realized what good deed she had done for her race.

Wesson chuckled a bit, "Haha, if it weren't for you, I would have gone alone, and they surely should have gotten to me. "

Sachi smiled as Wesson showed his thanks. Before long, they found themselves at the edge of the forest.

"Our wings should be fully charged by now" Wesson said as he began to hover in the air.

Sachi tried to do the same, but took a few seconds to hold her hand out to hold the joystick. Wesson noticed this.

"Here, get down" he said as he walked over to behind Sachi. Extending his index finger, he touched around above her shoulder blades. "Remember that spot that I touched."

"Got it."

"It's called voluntary flight, in which you don't require a secondary controller to fly. What you need to do is to learn to grow a virtual bone and muscle, as if the wings were an extension of your back." Wesson explained as Sachi began to twitch her shoulders. From where he touched, light blue fish fin shaped wings pushed through her brown cloak.

"There, move your shoulders a bit to get the feel of it."

The more she moved her shoulders, the more the blue wings began to flutter.

"There you go! Now try to gain some height. Just flap them up and down."

Doing as she was told, Sachi ascended into the sky with a sufficient amount of thrust. "W-whoa!"

"Try to relax a bit! You're wings are stiff and flying won't be as smooth!" Wesson called out as he started laughing.

Holding her breath, Sachi relaxed the tension building in her shoulders, and her flight began to be more stable.

"You get the feel of it yet?" Wesson asked as he hovered up next to Sachi.

Sachi nodded with enthusiasm.

"Okay then. Now, let's get back to «Vimur»"

**ooo**

"I was wondering actually Sachi" Wesson began to say as they stepped foot on the stone road of the gate to «Vimur», "You seem like an extremely new player. I mean, you didn't know how to fly yesterday, and you picked up voluntary flight pretty quickly. Yet, you're fighting technique makes it seem like you're a veteran."

"Ehehe, well, I have played a lot of other games before this" Sachi replied nervously, trying not to blow her cover as a former SAO player.

"That's good to hear. I'm overjoyed to have such a skilled player as one of us." Wesson said bowing slightly. "As the Lord of the «Undines», I humbly welcome you to our nation." Politely, he excused himself as he began his way back to the capital building. "Again, thank you so much for today. You really saved us" He said lastly.

"You're welcome" Sachi replied. Without giving it much thought as she waved back at Wesson, Sachi decided that she should spend the rest of the day training her magic. It was only about 10:00 in the morning, so she had a few hours to kill before she got hungry.

**ooo**

After about a couple of hours' worth of gameplay, Sachi had logged off to get some rest and eat some real food. Eating food in the virtual world was fine since it would momentarily satisfy hunger, but the body in the real world would be deprived of nutrients until real food was consumed. It wasn't just hunger that could force someone to log off from the virtual world. It could also be factors of mental fatigue through strenuous tasks, especially fighting.

Sachi relaxed her mind as she relaxed her body in a warm shower, followed by a meal. As she waited for the left overs from dinner last night to heat up in the microwave, Sachi let her eyes wander the room. Her mind wandered the sorrow of her step-father as she suddenly felt another wave of guilt strike her heart. Shaking away her mind clear, Sachi sat down at the dining table and began to eat.

It was a simple meal, some rice and vegetables and a little bit of meat. Some protein would help her get back into shape. In between bites, she glanced around the table, curiously examining some junk mail and papers, until she saw the business card that she had received earlier in the week.

"I should put this somewhere…" she said to herself as she stuffed the business card into her pocket. It seemed like a simple cardboard square, but business cards were something to be respected in Japan.

**ooo**

"I'm here…." The nonchalant voice of Okutse Ranamura said as his hands were gripped tightly to his steering wheel. He glared up past the windshield, "Sachiyo Shibaguchi…" he muttered. His mind began to flutter, "Wh-what do I do…? Tsurugi! Why!? I love you my son…. But… I can't… do something… like this…"

His mind kept bouncing back and forth, as if something was tormenting him, breaching, even the most inner reaches of his brain. "_Do… it…." _A voice rang in his head as he tried to ignore it. The more he tried to ignore it, the more it took control of his actions. After thrashing about, he yelled out, "I won't!"

**ooo**

"A guest?" Sachi wondered to herself putting her chopsticks down. "I wasn't expecting any company today. A package maybe?" Sachi would never know until she opened the door. "Oh?" To her surprise, it was the strange interviewer she had yesterday.

"Ah.. S-Sachi?" Okutse asked nervously.

"Yes? Did you need something?"

"Oh, I'm sorry for intruding, but erm…." Okutse fixed his glasses and felt his pockets. He weaved his fingers anxiously through the papers that were in them. "I just wanted to ask a few more questions. But… do you mind if I come in first? I think we might have to sit down for this"

Sachi stood there with a nod as she invited him inside.

"Would you like something to eat? Or drink maybe? I was just eating lunch" Sachi offered

Okutse shook his head. "No, I'm fine. Just take a seat for now."

Doing as he told, they both sat down at the dining table where Sachi set her meal aside.

"Do you remember when I asked you if you have killed someone in SAO?" He asked taking his glasses off.

Sachi nodded, swallowing the lump in her throat. There was it again, that wave of unease that she had felt before,

_Someday…. You'll pay….I'll make sure of it_

Those familiar chills leaped down Sachi's spine as she shivered in her seat.

"Tsurugi was his name no?"

"Yes, it was."

"I see…." Okutse murmured putting his glasses back on, "Can you, can you describe what kind of person he was?"

"He was a killer. I almost lost one of my closest friends because of him." Sachi said in slight disgust.

Okutse was silent for a moment before speaking again. "Sachi…. Do you know, Tsurugi's last name by chance?"

Slightly stunned about the question, Sachi answered, "No"

"Ranamura"

"Ranamura…?" She asked

"Yes. He was my son." Okutse said pulling out an envelope, as white as heaven itself, and flopped it on the table. "Do you know what this is?"

"A…A shigofumi" Sachi replied as her throat dried up.

"Open it up, and read it" The man replied as he slid the envelope across the table to Sachi.

Pausing a moment, Sachi slowly opened the envelope, and took out the neatly folded paper. Opening it up, her heart raced even faster as she read the black ink of truth.

_I was killed. Avenge me. My killer is Sachi_

She dropped the paper, unable to say anything as she looked up at Okutse's face. His face held a nonchalant expression, as if he wasn't at all phased by these words written.

"W-what are you… going to do?" Sachi asked in a grave tone.

Okutse began to laugh. "I honestly don't know anymore. I can't seem to bring myself to avenge my son. I figure that I won't. To be honest, I always knew that my son had problems, especially relationship problems. He suffered a lot, and went through plenty of tantrums. But, for it to escalate to murder, it's sad. I'm sad. At the same time though, I'm glad that his pain was ended; that troubled boy." Saying this, he stood up, and collected the letter, stuffing it back into his pocket. "Sachi, thank you. I'm sorry for my son causing you and your friends so much trouble." He said lastly before taking his leave.

Sachi accompanied him to the door, "I won't be bothering you again. Thank you for your time."

**ooo**

Maybe it had been an hour or two since Okutse had left, but Sachi found herself, sitting on the couch, staring at the ceiling. "He wasn't lying…" she muttered to herself as she sighed. "He did haunt me"

It relieved Sachi to know that the echo of death was gone. There was one less thing on her mind, tugging at her arm dragging her back now.

Later that night, Sachi had already gone to bed.

"I'm home" Tomiichi whispered as he entered through the front door.

"Welcome home" Eri replied as she placed her mug of coffee down on the table, kissing Tomiichi as she approached him.

"Is Sachi asleep already?" He asked.

Eri nodded, "That girl likes to sleep earlier than others"

Tomiichi chuckled as he started up the stairs, "Kind of reminds me of myself" He said as he tiptoed to Sachi's room. It was slightly open, and the light snoring of his step daughter was heard through the dark hallway. Glaring through the crack, and quietly opening the door, Tomiichi smiled as he saw Sachi, sleeping soundly.

Sitting down gently beside her, he heard her talk in her sleep.

"Mmmhh, Tomiichi…. I mean… dad. Stop rubbing my hair. I have to comb it down again if it sticks… up…" Sachi droned on in between snores.

Tomiichi smiled with pleasant surprise and sentimentality as he leaned down and kissed Sachi on the head. His heart leaped when she said dad, and he knew it was completely sincere. "I know it sticks up…" he muttered in reply.

**ooo**

"The night sky never looked so clear" Okutse said as the wind blew his withering hair. Breathing out the cold winter air, he held up the letter that his late son sent to him. The mad son. "I am no longer, under your control" he murmured as bit by bit, he ripped up the letter, sending the shreds to fly with the wind.

Looking up, he said in a shrill voice, "It's quiet. At long last"

**A/N: Sorry for the long period of no updates guys, but this chapter really did not go the way I originally planned, so I took a completely different discourse. Oh well, I did like how this turned out though. Anyway, at this point, I just wanted to publish already since it had been such a long time. A fitting end to the haunting of Tsurugi no? **

**On another note, I'm on spring break, so I'll have a little bit more time to write. Sorry for the lacking quality, but I've kind of lost my touch and will for writing this story out. But hopefully, I'll see it to the end.**

**Otherwise, stay tuned and don't forget to review.**


	7. Chapter 6 - A Small Overstock

Chapter 6 – A Small Overstock

**December 13, 2024 **

"I'm going out!" Sachi called out as she approached the front door of her house.

"Stay safe" Tomiichi said in reply as he continued his business on his tablet.

It was a cool, slightly cloudy day as Sachi walked through the streets of Fujimino City. It was the perfect weather to go out for a walk in Sachi's opinion. Not too hot, not too cold. She really disliked summer weather, and only really enjoyed it when she was swimming at the beach, or a pool, but otherwise, the humidity was a bit much for her.

To be honest, the real reason she was going out, aside from exercise, was to grab some lunch with Norie and Keshiga. Norie had texted her in the morning about meeting up for lunch because she had an announcement to make.

"Seems like an important announcement if you need to meet us in person…" Sachi said to herself as she waited for the street light. She wondered what it would be. Could it be that Norie was announcing that she had gotten into college? Norie was a third year in high school when SAO rolled around, so she should have been close to a second year in college by now.

"Sachi!" Keshiga called out behind her as he hastened his pace to catch up. "Wait up!"

"I'm not going anywhere" Sachi replied as Keshiga leaned forward a bit to catch his breath.

"I…huff… I should really get out…more…" He joked as patted Sachi's shoulder.

"I think having a girlfriend is more than most other guys" Sachi joked, purposely misinterpreting what Keshiga had said, in return as they began to cross the street.

"I suppose" He chuckled in reply, "But still, we don't get opportunities like this to go out in the real world very often! Yea sure we might spend a lot of time in the virtual world, but it's not the same."

"What do you mean by that?"

"We've already had a year together in the virtual world. I think it's healthier to go out in the real world." He said crossing his arms with a hint of certainty in his face. "Yes, definitely healthier"

"And where did you hear that?" Sachi replied rather skeptically.

"I read it in an online article" Keshiga stuck his tongue out with a smile.

Sachi rolled her eyes with a slight sigh as she slapped her boyfriend lightly on the cheek. "Either way, real or virtual, it's still the same people, right?"

"I guess you have a point" The boy caved in with a shrug as he tucked his hands back into his pockets, fidgeting with his IPod to turn his music off. "Anyway, what do you think Norie called us out here for?"

"I have no clue" It was true, no one was expecting what Norie was going to talk to them about.

**ooo**

"Oi! Sachi! Keshiga!" A voice called out as the pair entered the small restaurant that they had been "summoned" to. Turning to the source, it was Norie waving her arm up to show where she was sitting.

"Hey Norie!" They both greeted as they took a seat across from their purple haired friend.

"Yo, how are you two? Good I hope?" Norie asked as she sipped her water.

"Mmh, what about you? Is work going okay?" Sachi asked in reply.

"Going great. Took the day off to show you guys something" Norie said patting a small package that she laid on the table next to her.

"Was this that announcement that you wanted to tell us?" Keshiga asked in reply has he rested his chin on his hand.

"Mhm, and I think you guys will like it" Norie said opening up the cloth. After pausing a moment, she took out two small boxes and showed them to Keshiga and Sachi. They were copies of ALFheim Online.

"ALFheim…. Online?" Keshiga asked as he tilted his head.

"Yea! We had an overstock because our distributor made a small error, so my boss said it was okay to take a few copies. Look, they come with a free month subscription." Norie said pointing to it on the back. "So, I figured that since Sachi already had a copy of the game, maybe we should get in on the action as well, just like old times." She added handing a copy to Keshiga. "Here Keshiga, one for me, one for you"

"Wow, thanks Norie!" he said as he opened up the box to examine the contents.

"Merry early Christmas Keshiga" Norie said. "Ehehe, sorry that you had to pay for yours Sachi"

Sachi shook her head, "It's fine, don't worry about it" Smiling in return.

**ooo**

"I've been reading up about this game for some time" Keshiga said as he finished his spoonful of rice, "But I've never had the money to actually go out and buy it. My mom's been very paranoid since the SAO incident. Is this compatible with the NerveGear?"

"Mhh," Sachi nodded in reply, "But patching it would take a very long time" she added emphasizing the _very_.

"Ah don't worry. I got that covered. I was bored, so I played around with the settings on the load screen of my NerveGear, so that patch is ready to go"

"That's good to see that you're prepared Keshiga" Norie said wiping her mouth with a napkin. "I see you've been learning"

"Is your sister at school?" Sachi asked with curiosity.

Norie nodded in reply.

"Hey, what about Taru? Have you talked to him about ALO?" Keshiga questioned.

Norie shook her head, "He said he was interested in it, but he said that he was busy trying to catch up with his girlfriend."

"Wait, you mean he's still with her?! After 2 years?!" Both Sachi and Keshiga expressed their surprise.

Norie nodded, "Takes a lot of dedication to do that though. But from what I can tell, she really likes Taru." She smiled as she said this, she was very happy about Taru. "Oh that boy. He would always be so shy around girls except me"

Focusing back on her eating, Norie asked in return, "What about Irina? Do you think she'll be interested in this too?"

Keshiga thought about it for a moment as he looked up to the ceiling. "I don't think so" he shook his head, "I talked to her mom recently, and the doctors said that she's still going through some trauma from what happened back in the summer. So they said it wouldn't be healthy to get back into the VRMMORPG world just yet."

"Hmm, that's unfortunate" Norie said rubbing her chin after she fiddled with the straw wrapper.

"So what race are you two going to choose?" Sachi stumbled her way into the conversation.

"You know, I haven't really thought about it really. I've only read the names, I don't really know what each race specializes in. So I don't know yet" Norie said as she tipped her hand to Keshiga, "What about you Keshiga?"

"Puca!" He said with enthusiasm, "I hear they're the bards of the game. If that's the case, then it's definitely Puca!"

**ooo**

After they had finished lunch, they took a bit of time to walk around Fujimino City. It felt good to Sachi for the three of them to just hand out in the real world. It felt, more in place, more natural. Unlike in SAO, something that was somewhat artificial.

"Do you guys know how the rest of the guild is doing?" Norie asked as she cupped her hands behind her head as they walked down the street.

Sachi shook her head, she hadn't heard anything from Futaro and the rest.

"Only a little bit from Moto, but otherwise, not much" Keshiga said slightly unsatisfied.

"I can't blame them, they have their own lives to tend to" Norie replied as she breathed in the winter air. "Christmas is coming up soon"

**ooo**

"I'm home!"

"Did you have a fun time with your friends Ieshi?" A woman asked as she appeared from the kitchen door, drying her hands with a cloth.

"I sure did, and guess what I got!" Keshiga said as he opened up his bag, taking out a copy of ALO.

Half-surprised half-baffled, Keshiga's mother frowned with a bit of discontent seeing a VRMMORPG in her household again, "Where did you get that? How much did it cost?"

"One of my friends works at a game store, so she gave me this copy for free." Keshiga replied nervously smiling, and also trying to keep a modest atmosphere.

"Was it that Sachi girl?" His mom asked planting a hand on her hip with a small grin.

"N-no… A-anyway, I want to start playing this now, can I mom?" He asked studdering a bit at first.

"Are you sure it's safe?"

"Yes mom, it's 100% safe. Plenty of people play this game, so it'll be fine"

"Well…. Okay. You're a young man now, and I respect that. Just don't let this game get in the way of school okay? You're lucky they postponed the date you were supposed to go to the emergency school." Keshiga's mom nagged. When the SAO incident occurred, Keshiga's mother broke down through the fear and stress of losing her son. She held an extreme grudge against the world of VRMMORPG's for a while. Once she had learned that he had woken up, safe and sound, she tried to dissuade Keshiga from playing VRMMOPG's. Of course, that wouldn't stop him from doing so.

"Yeah yeah, don't worry about it mom! I'll get it all covered." Keshiga blabbed. Before going to his room, his mom kissed him on the cheek.

"I wouldn't know what to do… if I lost another"

**9:55 P.M. East Fujimino City: Horigome Household**

"In other news today, recent plans have been made underway for the construction of an emergency school for SAO survivors. An interview earlier today with the Head of the Ministry of Internal Affairs revealed that renovations of the abandoned school in Tokyo are nearing completion. Students who missed school due to the SAO incident will resume school here as soon as the end of January." The anchor finished her report as the broadcast cut off into a commercial break.

"Noriko! Do you have to register for that emergency school?" A rather slurred, but in a good mood voice called out from the living room.

Leaning on the counter that peering from the kitchen to the living room, "Ah, I do. But only for a couple months" Norie replied as she walked from the kitchen and sat next to her father.

"That's right huh" Norie's dad murmured as he rubbed his chin, sipping his beer. "Weren't you in your last year of high school?"

Norie nodded as she swiped the can of beer from her dad's hands, a slight grin on her face. "You're drunk. Don't you think you've had enough dad? You have work in the morning"

"Bwahaha" Mr. Horigome remarked as he rubbed the back of his head, "I suppose so."

"I'll do the dishes. Mom's waiting for you upstairs" Norie added as she dumped the rest of the beer in the sink. It was strange. A few years before, Norie had an extreme hate and distrust to her own father, but now, now it felt like a normal father relationship. It was as if a dream come true, the family that Norie had always dreamed to have, and it was real. During those last moments in SAO, Norie had learned her lesson: Never take life for granted

Before leaving, Mr. Horigome leaned on the counter glaring at Norie, "You get to bed soon too okay?"

Norie chuckled, "I'm not a little kid anymore dad. Besides, I've got some other things to do"

"_Dishes are done, mom and dad are sleeping. Ellen's sleeping too…"_ Norie said in her mind as she crept up the stairs quietly. Tiptoeing her way towards Ellen's room, she peeked inside and smiled. The light snoring of her younger sister made her glad as she gently closed the door and proceeded to her own room.

Sitting at her bed, silent with her NerveGear in her hands, Norie looked around at her room. Nothing's changed. It may be a bit dustier, but her plain old room never changed. "Maybe I should decorate my room a little more" Norie joked to herself as she slid her NerveGear on. "Later though, I've got other things to do" She said before the link start sequence started up.

**9:55 ALOST (ALO Standard Time) – Puca Capital: Okolnir**

"Ack that was a shame. We almost beat them all too!" Keshiga's voiced sounded as his body materialized in the middle of a large fairgrounds plaza in front of the main performance tent of the Puca race. He and another player were dungeon crawling when they got outnumbered, and had to respawn back at the capital.

The Puca are a very unique race in ALO. Most of the buildings in Okolnir are carnival themed. Some even are tents. So, mostly dirt or grass roads, open bazaars and food stands that are held outside rather than inside. Even the food resembles food from carnivals. Assorted popcorn flavors, cotton candy like treats, refreshing shaved ice, and the like.

"Well, you did put up a really good fight against those monsters Keshiga" A boy said as he patted Keshiga on the shoulder from behind. "Are you sure you're new to this game? Because it really doesn't seem like you're new to VRMMORPG's"

"I've played a couple in the past, but this is the first time I'm playing ALO" Keshiga rubbed the back of his head as he played around with his _shamisen. _A shamisen is a traditional Japanese instrument that had threes strings, and a longer neck compared to other string instruments. "Say, Zato! Do you want to go check out the performances in the main tent?"

"Nah, sorry. I've got to log off in a bit. I have school tomorrow and I haven't done my homework yet" Zato replied. He was a very small boy, short in stature. His light blonde hair curved to the side with a natural perm. He wore a greenish robe adorned with musical notes. His shirt creased along the chest area, giving resembling a Victorian era style of dress while his tie was a fancy loose golden bow tie that shined in the sea of white from his dress shirt. His brown riding boots gave him a sense of perseverance as well as class.

Aside from regular music combat, Puca's had the ability to adorn their instruments with various gadgets and attachments as to make them suitable weapons for close combat.

Zato's instrument of choice was a violin that had a sharp blade tipped bow, and spiked groove on one side of the violin as to make it into a sort of blunt weapon if using the neck of the violin as a handle.

Keshiga for example, had a blade concealed in the neck of his shamisen. So, he could detach the neck from the body to create a makeshift spear.

"Aww, really?" Keshiga doted as he tilted his head, his upper lip slightly curled, "Oh well. I'll see you tomorrow then?"

"Maybe, depends on when I get home" Zato said before sending Keshiga a friend invite. "Till' then, see ya! Zato, out!"

"Okay, bye" Keshiga waved back as he accepted the friend invite. A few moments after Zato disappeared, Keshiga looked about. The capital of the Puca's, Okolnir, is often times filled with street musicians and performers trying to make a small living, and even to enhance their music skills. But every Puca dreams of someday holding a concert in the Grand Stage. To the north east of the Central Fairgrounds Plaza is a massive tent. This tent is known as the Main Tent, the main political building that the Puca's operate under, just like the main castle is to the Undines. The Main Tent also houses the Grand Stage, a place in which only the best musicians of the Puca have the opportunity to show off their skills and to give a performance and/or concert.

Whomever participates varies. There is a council made by players known as the Council of Musical Experts. These players are, more often than not, professional musicians in the real world. Or at least claim to be, but that matters not. All what matters is passion and skill with your instrument. Members of the Council of Musical Experts are chosen by the lord of the Puca's: the Musical Leader, whoever that may be currently. The job of the Council of Musical Experts is simply to roam the Puca territory and listen to their fellow Puca's play. If they find a player that has potential, they keep a note. If there is an opening in the schedule for performances on the Grand Stage, then selected players get the opportunity to perform.

There are many benefits to playing on the Grand Stage. Some do it for the money that is earned from admissions. Others do it for the bonus experience gain on musical skills; as, musical skills require massive patience, dedication, and practice to master, just like a real instrument. Some to show off their musical talent. But all in all, the most driving force and motivation to performing on the Grand Stage is to earn political power.

This is because of the nature of the Puca hierarchy. The more talented a player is, or unique in music genre and even how popular they might be, the more likely that he/she is to gain political power and climb the political chain. This gives way to having the most talented, or noteworthy player to become the leader of the Puca's. They are generally elected by the Council of Musical Experts and not by popular vote of the player base like in some other races.

Keshiga himself was wearing green robe inscribed with golden musical notes that covered down to his knees and slit up to the bottom of his chest. He wore green balloon shorts that lightly puffed above his knees. Underneath his robe was a plain dress shirt with a red ribbon tie and cufflinks at his wrists. His legs were covered by white leg stockings and his shoes were plain brown loafers. His hair was a dusty brown that was very close to being blonde, and he wore a Peter Pan like hate with a golden feather.

Sadly, when inquiring to other players about the Grand Stage, the replies he got all had said that there were no scheduled performances today. They told him that today was the Council of Musical Experts recruitment day, in which they venture around the Puca territory searching for fledgling musicians to add to the Grand Stage roster. There was a battle of the bands (Or in this case, musicians) scheduled for next week, and entry is very limited, only granted by the Council.

"Well doesn't that just make my day" Keshiga muttered as he rubbed the back of his head as he walked slowly out of the Main Tent. Looking about, he figured he could grab something to eat and log off for the day.

Leisurely chomping down on his overly powdered funnel cake, Keshiga sat at a bench in a rather empty portion of the city. A few players could be seen walking here and there, but otherwise, no players took extended stay. The boy figured that since there were so many other musicians playing their music in the busier parts of Okolnir, he wouldn't be able to hear his own music, and not being able to hear one's own music is a tragedy.

"Alrighty…" Keshiga said laying his plate down next to him as he picked up his shamisen. He took a breath before he was about to play, "Oh?" He noticed something was missing. Looking down at his right hand, he was missing a bachi. A bachi is the guitar pick of the shamisen. Looking about and through his pockets, he tried to search for one, "Huh. I was sure one came when I bought this…"

Amidst his search for a bachi, a robed person who was walking down the street happened to see him.

"Bachi, where… is it…."

Approaching Keshiga, the robed person held out a dustpan shaped pick. "Here"

"Oh, thanks!" Keshiga said as he took it with much gratitude.

"Do you mind if I observe?" The robed person asked.

Keshiga shook his head as he relaxed himself before sliding his fingers on the strings. He smiled before he began to pluck the strings with the bachi.

The shamisen was an instrument he used to play very much when he was younger. His older brother had one, but he never played it. So Keshiga gave it a try and he fell in love with it. He spent many an hour practicing with it.

This all changed when he was around 13. His brother had died due to a hemorrhage from a blow to the head with a baseball during practice. Keshiga was so distraught that he destroyed the shamisen out of rage. Out of all his siblings, his eldest brother was the one he was closest to.

Unable to bear the death of his brother, Keshiga never touched a shamisen again until recently when he had escaped SAO. Something clicked in his mind that playing a shamisen would feel right again.

Those feelings that Keshiga felt with his brother emanated themselves through the sound of his shamisen, playing a song that he used to play over and over again. It was his brother's favorite song, and it would become a tender one to Keshiga.

"_Bah!" I scowled to myself as I slammed the bachi of my shamisen onto my bed as I laid backward. _

"_Hahaha…. Are you still having trouble with that song?" My older brother asked rhetorically as he leaned at my door._

"_It's a pain Haji" I replied turning to my side on the bed while sitting my shamisen, "My fingers just aren't fast enough"_

"_Ieshiga, always complaining. How are you going to complain when a girl wants to go somewhere you don't want to be?" Haji teased as he sat next to me. _

"_I-I don't know!" I stammered a bit covering my blushing face with my sheets. 15 year olds, the age where socializing with girls was the most important, but the most idiot age at the same time._

"_Hahaha!" Haji chuckled as he patted my back, "Don't worry about it little bro. I'm sure you'll find a nice girl. But for now, just focus on you okay?" he asked picking up my shamisen. "Now, back to this. What you need to do is focus. Let the song radiate what you're feelings are at the moment. Let your heart pour out in your music."_

_I watched in amazement as my brothers fingers fluttered along the neck of the shamisen, as if he were giving it a fast finger massage._

"_That's how it's done" He promptly said setting my shamisen down. "Keep up the practice. You'll get it someday" _

_I watched him get up and head towards my door. Putting his baseball cap back on, he looked towards me and gave me a thumbs up. "I'm going to practice. See you later okay?"_

_Waving back, "See you later Haji" I said in reply. _

_Little did I know, about an hour later, my mom got a phone call. I remember her crying, and soon after, I found myself crying also_

It was an emotional rollercoaster, but it was one Keshiga thoroughly enjoyed by how nostalgic is was. Sighing out of sentiment, Keshiga ended the song that he had so much trouble years before, but somehow, he managed to do it. "_I did it Haji. I was a little rusty, but I finished the song"_

_Clap-Clap-Clap-Clap_ "Applause?" Keshiga thought to himself as he looked up at the robed person that lent him a bachi.

"That was quite a performance." The robed person said before pulling their hood down. It was a girl. "I'm part of the Council of Musical Experts, and I was wondering if you are interested in performing on the Grand Stage"

**11:23 ALOST – Imp Territory: Neleras Valley**

The Imp territory was quite pleasant in Norie's opinion. The mountainous territory gave way for beautiful scenery and vast views of the land below. The air was very cool, and the wind gave a nice feeling to the quiet atmosphere.

Unfortunately, Norie wasn't here to enjoy the scene. She was finishing up some of the beginner quests. Stalking through the brushes, Norie scanned the area, in search of mountain wolves, those were her targets. She spotted them, roaming about in an open plain in the valley.

"There they are" Norie murmured lowly before pulling an arrow from her quiver, pulling back the string, and aiming. Sword fighting got rather boring since Norie found out that her skills from SAO had transferred over, so she went with archery. It was between that or magic, and frankly, magic wasn't her strong suite. Especially in ALO where the spells closely resembled English speech. Norie was very bad with English and barely managed to pass her classes in high school.

Letting go of the pulled back arrow she had loaded, it sliced through the air with a piercing sound, hitting the wolf square in the chest. It wined a bit before bursting into shapes.

"Well, that was the last one I needed" Norie said to herself as she closed the quest notification for finishing her task. "Maybe it's time for a break" It's been around two hours since Norie had started playing ALO, and for first impressions, Norie certainly did feel at home here. Most of the mechanics were the same as SAO, save for a few new features such as magic and the like.

The Imp race caught Norie's attention mainly because they were purple. As a person with purple as her favorite color, Norie was naturally inclined to pick the race, and she wasn't extremely dissatisfied. The Imps were more of assassins, and Noriko herself was more of a front line fighter, but she figured that she could adapt. The perks at nighttime were an additional bonus as well.

Walking along the shore of the lake in the valley, Norie perched herself on the top of a large tree trunk, overlooking the water. She had gotten the hang of flying very fast; looking up instructions on voluntary flight beforehand helps much. Looking up at the clear full moon sky, Norie then glared at her own reflection in the lake.

The regular goggle cap she was known for was replaced by a black beret with a purple outline near the base. Her purple hair was darker than usual, and was tied up into two pony-tails compared to her one unicorn tail. She wore a jacket with sleeves that went up to the elbow, and dropped down to her pockets. The collar of her jacket stood up instead of being folded, and had purple outlines along the zipper. She wore black shorts that were a bit longer than in SAO, and her shoes were basic brown lace-ups with socks that went up to her knees. Her arms were guarded by a pair of vambraces, and she wore an assortment of belts that crossed over her chest and hip. It was quite the hunter's appearance, something that Norie wasn't used to since she liked plain better. Otherwise, she didn't have much to complain. At least she got a rather workable appearance, especially since appearance was randomized in ALO unless one paid a fee.

Opening up her inventory, she decided to take a look at what items she had were still usable from SAO. Before all that, Norie took a muffin out and began to nibble on it as she browsed her inventory. "Nothing but lines…" she said as her eyes scanned the unreadable characters of the items that once made her the Parry Master. One by one, Norie discarded the items, remember each one's purpose before she stumbled upon a small item. Again, the name of it was unreadable, but the bonus stats of it was still intact.

?

HP+ 17

Norie smiled bitterly. This was the pin that virtual Ellen had given her for her birthday. Not only that, it helped her survive the blow from the «Skullreaper». Without this, Norie wouldn't be here nibbling on this muffin. She thought about this for a moment before proceeding back to clearing her inventory. "Ellen…" she whispered.

All of her items from SAO seemed to have been thrown out. Norie scrolled through her inventory one more time to make sure. As she was going to take another bite out of her muffin, Norie caught something of interest. It was an item, not in strange characters, but strange in title.

EGO_PROCESS_001_EXE

"What is… this…" Norie wondered as she set her muffin on her lap. Tapping the mysterious item once, a window that opened up to show options. Selecting the USE option, a light began to glow in front of Norie, and it materialized into a small stone. Holding her hands out to take it, Norie examined the stone with much curiosity. It was small, cream blonde in color.

"This is….!" Norie didn't have enough time to finish her sentence. At the moment that she realized what the stone was, she hovered her hand over it and opened the action menu. Hastily selecting USE again, she awaited what would happen next.

The stone grew bright as it floated upward a bit to the ground on front of Norie, by the shore of the lake. The bright shape began to grow bigger and bigger, until eventually, it took the form, of what looked like, a young girl, sleeping on the ground. Jumping down from the trunk, Norie slowly approached the sleeping girl.

"Ellen…?"

**A/N: Sorry guys for such a long period of no updates, but these next three weeks will be hell for me, and I probably won't be able to devote some time to writing. After that though, it's all just sit and cruise through until schools over. Anyway, here's my next chapter, and many things are beginning to unfold. Since there wasn't much information about other races and their political worlds, I figured that I could play around with the political and social structure of the other races. **

**Can you guess what country's government I based the Puca government after?**

**Ah well, if you don't, that's okay. Anyway, I think we'll be having two surprise guests in the next chapter, one of which you already know! (Hint hint, name starts with an E) **

**Well, that's all I wanted to say for now. Stay tuned for the next chapter (Which probably won't be up for another few weeks) and don't forget to leave a review.**


	8. Chapter 7 - The Compatible Form

Chapter 7 – The Compatible Form

"E-Ellen…?" Norie asked as she slowly crept up to the girl sleeping with her back to Norie. That pink hair, that cream bonnet, that loud snoring. It was definitely the Spirit Ellen Norie thought to herself. _But how? How did she… How is she still here?_

Kneeling down next to Ellen, Norie was about to shake her lightly on the shoulder before

"Graaaaa!"

"Wha-?!" Norie shrieked out of surprise as the girl had suddenly turned around and screamed with a familiar mask on her head. Quickly backing up from Ellen still on her bottom, Norie began to hear laughing.

"Hahahahaha! Whoo! You should have seen the look on your face! Haha!" Ellen began to laugh as she pulled the mask up from her face, pointing at Norie.

"Ellen…." Norie murmured actually gladly, seeing that her companion hadn't changed a bit. Seeing that Ellen began to wipe the tears from her laughter, Norie began to say, "Ellen, it's me, Norie"

Tilting her head out of confusion with her raised eyebrows, she asked, "Norie…?" It seemed as if Ellen had never heard that name before.

Norie gasped inside her mind, could Ellen's memory have been erased as a result of SAO?

"Hahahaha! Don't make me laugh! You're not Norie!" Ellen started to laugh as she pointed at Norie again.

"Ah…" Norie began to get a bit annoyed as she dropped her fist on Ellen's head and rubbed her knuckles on the girls small head.

"Ahh! Ow, ow! Ah! Okay, hi Norie! It's been a long hasn't it huh! Glad to be back!" Ellen said trying to stop the small dose of pain on her head. Still trying to recuperate from Norie's attack, Ellen suddenly found herself being hugged tightly.

"I missed you" Norie said, sentimentally hugging Ellen tighter.

"If you hug me tighter, I think you'll miss me in a few minutes" Ellen said as she began to smile, "But, I missed you too Norie"

**ooo**

"Ellen, can you explain…?" Norie said as looked up at the moon from the tree trunk she was sitting at earlier.

"Mmmh…" Ellen paused before her stomach began to growl. "Do you have anything to eat? It's been a long time and I'm starving"

Norie sighed with slight sarcasm, "Here, I was eating a muffin earlier, but you can have it" she said holding her partially eaten muffin to Ellen.

"Thanks!" Ellen said happily devouring it, "I'm still hungry though" she said smiling with her tongue out. "But oh well, I guess I can wait a bit." Pausing a moment, she began to kick her feet in the air looking down at her own reflection at the lake.

"Ellen…"

"Honestly, I don't know what happened" Ellen said looking at Norie, "After I disappeared, I thought I was done for, but next thing I knew, I was sleeping. I tried to wake myself up, but it was such a good sleep, I couldn't. Then, when you logged in, I had suddenly felt the urge to be able to wake up." Smiling as she held the old mask up, "It looks l like you've been doing good haven't you?"

Norie smiled swiping the mask from Ellen, "I've been doing great" She said rubbing Ellen on the head.

"But you look so different!" Ellen noted as she tugged on Norie's tails. "You've got pointy ears too!"

"Alright alright, enough about me looking different" Norie replied swatting Ellen's hands away from her head. "What about you? This is a different game after all. Are you sure you can take this form?"

"That's the part I'm not sure about." Ellen said opening up her own menu. Norie gasped with slight surprise. She had never seen Ellen interact with the game before. "Hmm?" Ellen slyly smiled at Norie, "I never had to use this because Cardinal knew of my existence in SAO, but I'm not too sure about the Cardinal in this game. It's more up to date. There's more of a chance that he might mistake me for a virus"

After a few more minutes of sliding and tapping her finger across her virtual console, "Hmph!" Ellen puffed her cheeks in slight frustration.

"What happened?"

"Cardinal's being mean" Ellen complained, "He says I can't maintain this form or else he'll keep bugging me"

"Eh…." Norie didn't really know what to say. "So what will you do now?"

Ellen sighed, "There's another AI entity that has a compatible form for me. It's called a Navigation Pixie" She said pressing her screen. "Just watch and see"

Ellen stood up with her arms outstretched as her body began to shine in a bright light. She then began to shrink and shrink until she was about 10 centimeters in height. Then, the light faded and Ellen stood there, glaring at her new form.

"Eh…?" Norie lowered her head down to get a better look. She wore a pale pink mini-dress that looked as if it were made out of flower petals, with two translucent wings stretching out from her back.

Ellen had a rather unamused expression on her face, "I don't like it! It's too… simple" she said looking at her new features. Her hair was a little bit longer than her usual pink bob down to her shoulders, with a flowery hair accessory on the right side of her head. Her feet were bare and she wore a bangle around both ankles.

"It's a nice change at least" Norie chuckled as she sat cross legged, "Well, now I guess I'll have to buy you less treats since your stomach is smaller now huh?"

"I dunno" Ellen said flying up to Norie's shoulder, "I still haven't had a proper breakfast" she implied as she elbowed Norie in the cheek with her tiny elbow.

"Okay okay. It was about time I got back to town anyway" Norie understood the joke as she stood up. Flexing her shoulders, she began to hover above the surface as accelerate upward to gain some height.

"Now you see the joy of flying?" Ellen asked as she followed up.

"I get what you were trying to convey"

"Finally you understand-?!" Ellen was going to say before a gust of wind left Ellen quite speechless. Norie had blasted off before saying "Catch up to me if you can!"

Gritting her teeth with a smile before setting off herself, "No fair! You started before me and you're bigger than me!"

Norie smiled before she began to laugh out loud. "It feels good to win against you once in a while!"

"Don't expect to get away with this!" Ellen managed to say as she quickly caught up to Norie and took refuge inside a pouch along her waist.

**ooo**

"Norie…." Ellen said as she peeked out of her new pouch home.

"What's up?" Norie asked as she descended to the ground.

"Erm… why are you landing?"

"Because my wings are at their limit" Norie replied as she rubbed the tip of her wings.

"Really?! So you can only fly for a limited amount of time?" Ellen replied with quite a surprise.

"I guess. I mean, the goal of this game is to get to the top of that tree over there" She pointed towards Yggdrasil. "The first race to reach the top will gain unlimited flight"

"Unlimited flight huh…." Ellen said flying up to the top of Norie's beret, lying down on her belly and kicking her feet up and down, "That doesn't seem fair."

"I know it doesn't seem fair, but it adds to the competition." Norie replied as she kept walking through the mountainside forest.

"Everyone deserves to know the joy of flying!" Ellen mumbled with her palms squishing her cheeks together.

About five minutes passed before Norie paused to open up her map to see how much further away they were from town. Quite far away by foot. "Ack, and I still have to wait for my wings" Norie said glancing down at them.

"Norie… I'm picking up other players" Ellen said taking off and floating in front of Norie.

"Are you sure?"

"I'm a navigation pixie, of course I know!" Ellen replied as she took step on Norie's shoulder. "They seem to be fighting. Sixteen players in total, there seems to be a mix between Imps, Sylph's, Cait Sith's, Spriggans and Salamanders. Should we go see?"

Pointing in the direction southwest towards the Salamander territory, "In that direction" Ellen said.

"If they're fighting, I'm in. Fighting monsters gets boring once in a while" Norie said as she shifted her bow in her hands.

"What happened to the sword?" Ellen asked poking Norie's bow, a little disappointed.

"It got boring. I'm trying something new for a change" Norie said before she began to run towards the direction Ellen pointed towards, "Besides, my cutlass broke, don't you remember?"

"Right… That was a nice sword too! It was comfy!"

**ALO – Southwest Plains: Near border of Imp/Salamander Territory**

"You're a Salamander for crying out loud! Why are you hanging out with them?" A male Salamander asked as he locked weapons with a female Salamander.

"I told you already! I'm in a party, I have no interest in your nation ideals!" The female responded back forcing him back with her spear.

"If you won't join us out of your own will, then we'll just have to drag you down with us!" One said swinging his sword back.

"Then bring it. We'll take all of you guys down!" A female Imp swordswoman said quickly preparing her stance before dashing forward.

Reacting as fast as he could, the first Salamander raised his sword to block the lunge. It worked, it successfully blocked the Imp's sword, but amidst his smiling success, the Imp quickly pulled backward and lunged once more, stabbing him in the chest. This was followed by a spin and slash across the stomach, and multiple slashes along his limbs.

Looking behind her, the Imp scanned the scene of their fight. Recently, she had met a small party of four. They were a mixed race party, so they seemed to be friends from school. What they were doing around in Imp territory, she didn't know. Did they seem suspicious? A little at first. But after a bit of chat, she found out that they were just a high school group of friends roaming around.

"You better watch my back Yata!" A silver haired Cait Sith male called out.

"Don't worry about it!" The blonde haired Sylph said in reply as he slammed the sheath of his sword against the head of one of the Salamanders they were fighting. "Hasegawa, you should tell Amaya to move quickly, we're a bit in a pinch here!"

"Y-You just ruined the plan!" The nervous black haired Spriggan said as she thinly appeared out of the dark and slashed a Salamander mage in the back. "I-I was doing fine" she murmured before hastily engaging combat with the other two mages.

"There wasn't a plan to begin with!" The red haired Salamander lancer replied to all the commotion

"I told you not to choose Salamanders Rika!" Hasegawa replied as his wolf companion pounced at the Salamander he was fighting from behind.

"Shut it!"

"They seem like such a lively bunch-"The Imp girl said before her mind refocused back onto the battle at hand. Currently, they were a group of five fighting against a Salamander group of ten. Since Salamanders were a combat specialty class, it proved to be about 15 people they were fighting against taking sheer ability into account.

Fighting back the blade of the commander of this squad, the Imp girl said out in a rather merciless tone, "You're invading Imp territory! Don't you know what that could do to both our races?" she asked

"You mean wage war?" The commander answered with a menacing smile. Jumping out of a blade lock, he began to laugh. "Think about it. Imp Salamander relations are at a neutral right now, but since it's so delicately neutral, I think the guys up top would want to find a bone to pick with you mountain dwellers. And since you lack numbers, it's another easy win for us! It'll be almost as easy as taking down the Sylph Lord"

Ignoring his speech, the small Imp girl lunged forward at his throat. Raising his own sword up to barely shift hers inches to the left, a bead of sweat rolled down his brow at the realization of how fast this girl was. Next thing he knew, he was barely keeping up with her swings and blows. The Imp downed her blade diagonally. Blocking it, but taking a hit to the shoulder, he jumped backward to maintain distance and defense.

Charging at him, the Imp swung her sword upward as he parried, and swiftly followed with a slash to the right, and a spin to slash in the same manner. He managed to stop the first upward swing, but the next two came so fast that the Salamander had no way of reacting fast enough.

"_She's fast…. No matter. I may lack speed, but she lacks numbers"_ The Salamander said to himself as he looked at a comrade in the eye in the bushes nearby. Nodding in reply, his comrade quickly disappeared through the brush.

Grinning to himself, he held his sword out. "Is that all you go-"

"Ha!" The Imp girl yelled out as she dashed forward within the blink of an eye, impaling her sword into his neck with such force that caused him to be knocked back. At the rate of which his HP bar was dropping, he would lose all of it by the time he hit the ground.

"_Oh well… hehe_" It didn't matter too much to him. Eying to her right, he saw the shadow of his comrade ready to pounce from the brushes at the girl as he was falling.

"_His eyes…!"_ The girl quickly realized as he was glaring to her left. She anticipated that someone was going to ambush her, and her assumption was right as she heard the ruffling of leaves. Spinning to her right, she swung her sword around to meet the ambusher face to face.

"_What?!"_ The Salamander commander thought to himself. _"How could she…?"_ Despite his plan crumbling to failure, he fell to the ground, disappearing into a red flame. Another Salamander took advantage of the Imp's distraction and raced up behind her while she locked blades at first with the ambusher.

The Imp took notice of this, but even she couldn't react fast enough. All of this took place in the timespan of a few seconds. At this current moment, she was still locking blades with the ambusher right when he jumped. The axe user was in the corner of her eye, but not matter how fast she could possibly react, even down to the millisecond range, she would get hit either way, so she braced herself.

_Snap!_

Her eyes widened. That was the sound of an arrow being fired. She heard it split through the air, and she caught a glimpse of it hitting the Salamander just before she was going to swing. Taking advantage of the momentary displacement, the Imp pushed back the ambushing Salamander and cut him down within three precise strokes.

Looking behind her to see what had happened to the axe wielding Salamander, the Imp was surprised to see another Imp locking weapons with her.

"It's okay if we kill them right?" The Imp asked her.

"Err… Yea! They'll just respawn back at their town" She called out in return.

"Alrighty then!" The newcomer had said bending a little bit before kicking the axe Salamander at the legs, causing her to trip. While mid-fall, the Salamander was suddenly kicked in the abdomen area; sent flying back.

Spinning and kneeling downward while pulling the string of her bow back with an arrow loaded, the new Imp smiled before releasing.

**ooo**

"Hey! Nice shot there!" The Imp said as she patted the new player on the shoulder. The fight was over and they emerged victorious. "I don't think we could have done it without you!"

"Hehe, thanks!" She replied as she began to laugh, "I hadn't fought like that in ages" Amidst her laughing, she introduced herself, "Ah, my name's Norie. This is my navigation pixie"

"N-Navigation Pixie?!" The blonde haired Sylph Yata asked with intense surprise.

"Yea"

"Wow, such a rare item. Where'd you get her?" The Salamander Rika asked peering over Yata to get a clearer look.

"Well, a friend of mine was taking a break from the game, so he didn't want to leave his pixie alone." Norie replied.

"D-does sh-she have a name?" The quiet Amaya asked.

"The names Ellen!" Ellen replied loudly and cheerfully as she saluted.

"Cssh..." The loner Hasegawa clicked his tongue, "We got quite the loudmouth here huh?"

"Hey!"

With everyone chatting and laughing after a battle, it certainly felt like home in Norie's mind; especially with no fear of anyone dying.

"Hey, I forgot to ask" Norie said turning to the Imp girl. She had ivory skin that gave her a sense of natural beauty, her dark purple hair gleamed in the sunlight. What amused Norie the most was her red headband. It was simple, yet effective in defining her character. Her red eyes stared with intent as she waited for Norie to ask her question. The large smile on her face anticipated a joy filled answer.

"What's your name?" Norie asked smiling back at the girls enthusiasm.

Smiling for a moment before moving her lips, the Imp girl replied, "Zekken! The names Zekken!"

**A/N: Hello guys! Now that AP exams are over, I'll be much more focused on writing from here on forth. So expect more updates within the next few weeks! At last we get to find out who the mystery guest character is, and that is none other than Konno Yuki herself! **

**I've also published another Fanfiction for the anime called Shingeki no Kyojin (aka. Attack on Titan). Honestly, it's a really good show! If you guys liked SAO then you'll really like this! It's got me really hooked. **

**If you're already an avid fan of the show, drop in sometime and give my story a read!**

**Anyway, I hope this was a good chapter, a shorter one at that, but I should be back soon with another chapter to refocus back on Sachi. Otherwise, I'll see you guys next time! **


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